


give me one more night

by Spongyllama



Series: power & control [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Psychological Trauma, RotS AU, first annual meeting of the Anakin Skywalker rescue alliance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26296429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spongyllama/pseuds/Spongyllama
Summary: The sky was falling, the world was crumbling beneath his feet. Palpatine was a Sith Lord, Padmé was going to die, and Anakin was desperate enough to do the unthinkable: actually ask Obi-Wan for help..AU based off the following lines from Matthew Stover’s ROTS novelization:“If only Obi-Wan were here — Obi-Wan would know what to say. What to do.Obi-Wan could handle this.Right now, you know you can’t.”
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Sheev Palpatine & Anakin Skywalker
Series: power & control [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986343
Comments: 176
Kudos: 671





	1. Obi-Wan

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: This story leans heavily on the fact that Anakin was canonically groomed by Palpatine, which is a form of abuse. Nothing sexual of course, which I’m only saying because grooming tends to be such in the real world, but it’s still pretty heavy. If this is something you have difficulty with, turn ye back now. It also deals with elements of anxiety.
> 
> The prompt for this story is basically this line from Stover’s novel:
> 
> ‘Anakin took Mace’s arm in a grip of desperate strength, and used it like a crutch to haul himself upright. “Obi-Wan…,” he said faintly. “I need to talk to _Obi-Wan_ —”’
> 
> so…what if he did?

Obi-Wan’s second visit to Utapau turned out to be much less…entertaining, perhaps, than the first.

Not that he would ever _willingly_ admit the previous mission here had been fun, or thrilling. Lugging an enormous kyber crystal across the plains in a high-speed chase likely reminiscent of Anakin’s old racing days…. Well, the fun part hadn’t been the chase itself, of course, which had in fact left Obi-Wan nauseous for at least an hour following its conclusion. Neither was being subsequently captured by Grievous particularly enjoyable. The _fun_ part, rather, had been doing it all with Anakin.

The war was well into its third year now, swiftly approaching the fourth, and they’d been working together more often of late than even in the first, it felt like, so much so that they’d garnered their own little nicknames. The Hero. The Negotiator (Force help him). _The Team_. One thing had led to another, and here they found themselves — ahem — poster boys for the Republic. It was perplexing, and slightly bothersome — though, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but admit, understandable. Because he and Anakin _were_ a team, they _did_ work better together than apart, and their success rate really was quite high, wasn’t it? Even if their successes _did_ usually involve blowing something up, like a giant Separatist base or, here on Utapau, an enormous kyber crystal. Well, whatever got the job done, he supposed.

So, yes. He and Anakin were a team, and nearly every mission they’d gone on during the recent Outer Rim Sieges had been together. Side-by-side, removing Separatist control from one planet after another, liberating colonies, crash-landing half of a broken cruiser on the permacrete of Coruscant, and not to mention that sticky situation on Cato Neimodia….

And now they were apart. Obi-Wan hadn’t expected it would hurt so much, leaving Anakin behind to come back here to Utapau, leaving Anakin to an assignment he hated on the behalf of a Council he was starting to resent. Leaving Anakin back on Coruscant where Obi-Wan could not keep an eye on him, reassure him that he was doing the right thing, for the Republic and for the Jedi and for…well, no. Maybe not for Anakin himself. Obi-Wan knew he would be lying if he actually thought that was true.

Because this whole Chancellor situation _was_ upsetting to his Padawan, who _did_ consider his assignment treasonous. How could Obi-Wan make him understand how necessary this all was?

Well, he couldn’t do anything from Utapau — except, of course, take care of Grievous.

And take care of Grievous he did. It had been barely ten minutes, perhaps, since the remaining organic tissue still clinging to life inside Grievous’s metal casings had gone up in flames. It had taken about five of those minutes for his heart to stop pounding — a hard task for his body to handle when he had to rush headfirst back into battle, shamefully devoid of his lightsaber (he would not be telling Anakin about _that_ little detail), riding atop his saddled varactyl mount Boga amid blasterfire and sparking droids falling down the sinkhole. His main focus now (besides hopefully locating his weapon) was to reconnect with his commander and see where the battle was taking them — and then in that very moment, he got a call on his commlink from just the man he was looking for.

_“General Kenobi,”_ said Cody’s voice through a layer of static interference, _“There is an urgent call from General Windu on Coruscant. He says its an emergency.”_

Hm? An emergency call during a major battle, no less one that could not be conveyed through his second-in-command, was unusual, though not unprecedented. But something felt off. It was not, however, until Obi-Wan had ridden his mount back up the walls of the sinkhole through chaos and blasterfire and accepted the comm privately that he understood why.

For the hologram before him was not of Windu, but of Anakin. His friend did not seem to notice him at first, for he was leaning over himself, head in his hands, and Obi-Wan knew him well enough to tell even through a flickering blue projection that he was shaking.

“Anakin?”

His friend looked up wildly, and Obi-Wan could make out streaks of tears lining his face, plastering a loose lock of hair to one cheek. Anakin’s eyes were wide but visibly swollen as he looked upon Obi-Wan, as if he hadn’t actually expected the call to go through.

_“Master!”_ he exclaimed, his voice sounding thick and strained. _“Windu said you wouldn’t pick up!”_

“He said it was an emergency. What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“ _No!”_ Anakin said, choking on the word. _“Master, it’s the Chancellor! It’s Palpatine! He’s the Sith, Master, he’s Sidious, and he says —”_ He sniffled, rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve, but more tears visibly replaced those he’d wiped away. _“Padmé is going to die and he says he can save her but only if I join him but I can’t — I can’t —”_

“What?!” Obi-Wan said, leaning forward. Hang on. Wait a minute. Truly — what? Around him the battle raged on, but suddenly he felt deaf to it. “Hold on, Anakin, slow down. Palpatine is _Sidious?_ Did you tell Master Windu?”

_“Yes!”_ Anakin almost shouted, _“He’s gone to arrest him but I’m afraid he’s going to kill him, kill Palpatine I mean, but I told him he can’t because I_ need _him, but he didn’t listen, and if he kills him I don’t know what I’ll do, I need him to save Padmé and he said if he dies so will Padmé but she can’t, she can’t die, I can’t do this again….”_

“Slow down, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said again, gentle but firm. He had seen Anakin break down before, of course he had, many times — but not once, not ever in all of thirteen years had he seen Anakin quite like this. “What do you mean Padmé’s going to die?”

_“The visions! I’ve been having them since we got back from the Outer Rim, she’s going to die in childbirth and Palpatine says he can stop it —”_

“What? Childbirth?”

_“She’s pregnant!”_ Anakin choked out, wrapping his arms around himself like a protective shield. He looked like he was going to be sick, or faint. _“She’s pregnant and I’m having visions that she’s going to die and Palpatine knows about them and he said that if I join him he’ll show me how to prevent her from dying! And Windu and the Council are going there right now to arrest him and if they kill him then Padmé will die and I can’t go through it again, Master, what do I do? What do I do, Master?”_

“Okay,” Obi-Wan said, nodding slowly. This was — a lot to take in, but now was not the time to falter. He ran this information over in his mind, quickly — visions, visions like Anakin had had about his mother three years ago, Padmé was _pregnant_ with Anakin’s — oh — and Palpatine was — Force help them all. “All right,” he said again, reminding himself of who he was, and where, and the obligation he had to this sobbing heap of his former Padawan, who was once again leaning over with his hands threading through his hair, rocking forward and back in his seat reminiscent of a frightened child….

“All right,” Obi-Wan said once more, but then his friend cut him off —

_“I don’t want to turn,”_ Anakin said suddenly, looking back up at him now more desperate than ever. _“I don’t want to turn, but he says he’s the only one I can trust, he says that you’re a traitor but I know you can’t be, you can’t be…._ ”

“I am not a traitor,” Obi-Wan confirmed. “Anakin, listen to me. If Palpatine is the Sith, then every single thing he has told you for the last thirteen years is a lie. He is manipulating you. Don’t you see?”

_“No,”_ Anakin said, shaking his head wildly. _“He said — he said the Jedi are plotting to take over. He said the reason they won’t make me a master is because they think I would catch on to their plot and try to stop them. And he’s — it makes sense! Everything he says makes sense, it all adds up, and if the Council takes him down then I don’t know what I’ll do, I need him Master, and I want to follow Windu and make sure he doesn’t kill him but I’m afraid of what I might do if I go, I don’t want to do something stupid but Padmé is going to die and he’s my last resort —”_

Outside his little bubble here on Utapau, where he’d been so distracted Obi-Wan had almost forgotten that the war was happening thirty meters away, a cannon blast collided with an enormous rafter and it fell to the ground with a great crash. Obi-Wan did not so much as flinch.

Soon, he thought, he would have time to ponder the fact that his Padawan, his dearest friend, his brother, had been personally manipulated by the Sith Master who had orchestrated the entire Clone War. Soon, he thought, the grave revelations that his apprentice was a victim of sustained emotional abuse by the most powerful figure in the galaxy would hit him as hard as the _Invisible Hand_ had hit the surface of Coruscant.

Now, however, he had to act. And he knew exactly what he needed to do.

“Anakin,” he said, waiting until his friend had met his gaze. “Where are you right now?”

Anakin sniffled. _“In the main comm center. Master Windu told me to wait in the Council chambers when I was done talking to you.”_

“All right,” Obi-Wan said patiently. “Listen to me. I’m coming back. Do as he says, stay in the tower, all right? Do you understand? _Stay_ where you are, stay in the temple.”

_“But if something happens to him —”_

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said again, but this time it was softer. He looked right into his friend’s watery eyes. “You asked me for help. Let me help. All right? Your master is going to take care of this. But I need you to _stay where you are._ Promise me.”

Through the hologram, he watched as his friend wrestled with himself. Their connection in the Force while apart was far more muted than normal, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t sense the turmoil, the anguish, the pure unfiltered grief. A few times Anakin opened his mouth to speak and then clamped it shut, open and shut, until finally he stammered, _“Okay. I promise.”_

Obi-Wan looked directly into Anakin’s eyes, conscious of his friend’s quivering lower lip. “I’m coming,” he repeated softly. “Wait for me.”

The second the call ended, Obi-Wan punched in Cody’s comm frequency and the figure of his commander stood where Anakin’s had a moment before. “Cody, I need your fastest ship, priority alpha.”

* * *

The trip back to Coruscant in the cramped Jedi starfighter may have been the greatest test of Obi-Wan’s patience he had ever endured. And having been the person responsible for a teenaged Anakin Skywalker, _that_ was saying something.

Peace and the ability to meditate eluded him. Thoughts flew around incoherently in his head as he processed the day’s events in their fragmented entirety. Grievous’s death already felt like ages past, and Obi-Wan surprised himself with how quickly he had accepted the confirmation of Anakin and Padmé’s relationship…he had known, of course, of their mutual feelings for each other, though he had never _dreamed_ they would take it this far…and he couldn’t deny a sting of regret that Anakin had not trusted him with this information until now…. Still, lingering on this fact did not suit him. Regardless of his personal feelings about this situation (and they were positive, mostly, but Anakin _was_ a Jedi and he couldn’t have both no matter how much Obi-Wan knew he would want to) it was simply reality. It simply _was_ , and now they would have to face the consequences. He would have time to ponder the rest of it _after_ Anakin was safe from the dark side.

Oh, goodness.

More than once, he caught himself fidgeting — _fidgeting_ of all things. Images of Anakin hunched over, eyes red-rimmed even through the blue filter of the hologram, lingered at the forefront of his mind. Really, Obi-Wan thought, he’d been away from the man for a small handful of days and already the very fabric of the universe had begun to unravel…what was a Jedi Master to do?

Oh. Well, there was one thing. Not a thing, rather, but one person, he realized abruptly, that might actually be able to help him —

He’d already entered her comm frequency into the ship’s computer without being fully conscious of what he was hoping to get out of this. But, he supposed, even that was better than _fidgeting_.

Ahsoka answered his call after half a minute. Her smile was muted but still present, and she bowed her head to him respectfully. _“Master Kenobi. I’m glad to hear from you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps the title is from the song “Blue” by Marina and the Diamonds which is an extremely upbeat song with very depressing lyrics. in other words, a big mood. but also the whole story takes place over one night lol. Hope you all enjoy!!!
> 
> new chapters every Saturday (Sunday morning Asia-Pacific)


	2. Anakin

Looking back, Anakin couldn’t help but think that no other nine-year-old in the galaxy had probably had a life this crazy.

There he was, a kid transported from his dustball home to an unfathomably giant city, and from there to the greenest place he had never even been able to imagine. There was enough fresh water on Naboo, he remembered thinking, to put every single moisture farm on Tatooine out of business for thousands of years. Later on, the ethical implications of this would begin to catch up with him as he thought — why, then, does Tatooine even have this problem? But there, then, as a little kid trying really, really hard not to think about how hard his mom must have been crying back home, wounded from the loss of her only son — it was just so _cool._

And that was barely scratching the surface of the mind-blowing-ness of it all. He had met, or at least had been in the presence of, people who were leaders of entire planets, governments, _galaxies_ — he’d gotten to go inside the Jedi Temple, a place vastly more wonderful than he’d ever imagined, because his only reference point for elegance was Gardulla’s Palace, which wasn’t even as nice as Jabba’s but he’d never been there….

And _then_ , to top it all off, he’d gotten a personal thank you by the guy that Obi-Wan had later told him would be in charge of the entire Republic. The new leader of hundreds…thousands? of star systems had thanked _him!_ when barely a week before, he’d just been a kid that had dreams and absolutely nothing to his name but a naked droid and a scrapped-together racer gathering sand behind the slave hovels. 

(And those things hadn’t really belonged to him, either, because _he_ had belonged to someone else.)

At first, Anakin thought that was that. A passing thank you, mind-boggling as it was, from the man newly in charge of the Republic Senate, who had originally hailed from this extremely green and wet planet. That was, rather, until there was a banquet celebrating the victory over the droid army, and Anakin was _personally_ invited to sit right next to this man at the feast.

He hadn’t known what to expect, but Obi-Wan’s presence there made him feel better. Even though they hadn’t really talked much, Obi-Wan was a Jedi and the Jedi were his dream, plus he’d been Qui-Gon’s apprentice and was obviously _super_ strong and powerful if he had defeated that scary Zabrak man at close combat….

(And Anakin wasn’t _really_ sure if Obi-Wan had actually called him “dangerous” on that landing platform in the city, or if maybe Anakin had just heard wrong….)

Though he hadn’t known what to expect, talking with this kindly man, who patiently took the time to explain to Anakin exactly what it meant to be Chancellor and how he had come to that position, was actually quite delightful. All throughout dinner they spoke. They talked about Padmé — uh, Queen Amidala — and how he, Palpatine, had helped her get elected, which Anakin was very grateful for. They talked about podracing, and how impressive Palpatine thought it was that Anakin could do it, and that Anakin must be very, very skilled for someone his age, a standout among all his peers….

Anakin wouldn’t exactly have called the conversation _weird_ , but it was kind of…confusing, how someone super extremely important and busy could possibly be interested in a…in someone like him. And, bashfully, Anakin couldn’t help but confess as much.

But all Palpatine did was grace him with a reassuring, friendly smile. “I’m the newly elected leader of the Republic, a government made up of thousands of star systems populated by trillions and trillions of people. I am interested in your life, Anakin, simply because I enjoy learning about new people and things. A good Chancellor must be well-informed, you know, and I’ve never spoken to someone from Tatooine before. Won’t you help to inform me of your experiences?”

So Anakin did. He talked about the races, the Hutts, the gambling, the spaceports, about how much he’d wanted to leave. He talked about his mom, and how much he missed her already, missed her _really really_ bad, and how worried he was for her. When prompted, he told Palpatine about going to the Jedi temple, about meeting with the Council, and how he hadn’t known the Jedi even _had_ a Council because none of the freighter pilots in Mos Espa had ever spoken of them. He mentioned in passing that he hadn’t been sure if he’d even be able to _be_ a Jedi, but that they had finally accepted him in and that he was to be trained.

“That’s good to hear,” Palpatine said kindly. “I don’t know much of the Force myself, but it seems to me that you must be very powerful in it. And after seeing what you’ve done for our planet, I think you are sure to become an excellent Jedi one day.”

“You really think so?”

“Certainly. Perhaps you will even rise to be on the Council yourself.”

At the end of the banquet, after more chatting, Palpatine simply said to him, “I think we share a common goal, Anakin Skywalker. I hope some day soon we can continue this lovely conversation; I think we are going to be fast friends.”

They were, as it turned out. Well, maybe not _fast_ , because Anakin had all his training to do and Palpatine had half a galaxy to run, but whenever they did bump into each other over the years, either on business of the Jedi Council or _whenever_ , Palpatine always took time to ask Anakin about his training and compliment him on advancing so fast. And he was always so nice, so genuine, taking real interest in Anakin, asking him if he was happy. Anakin _was_ happy, though of course he still missed his mom and got frustrated sometimes during training, when there was something that he just didn’t quite _get_ that everyone else his age could do, even when Obi-Wan reassured him that everyone advanced at a different pace and Anakin would get there if he was patient….

When Anakin was thirteen years old, he received his first invite to have lunch with the Supreme Chancellor. One day far in the future, perhaps _very_ far, Anakin would look back on this and think, _Why did the Jedi let me go?_ But at the time it had been an honor. A privilege. He’d been a little nervous, because this would be the first time they were alone together, and he _could_ have said no, but what real reason did he have to turn down lunch with the most important man in the galaxy, who had never been anything but nice to him? 

And it had been fine. Really fine, actually. Quite nice. It was pretty much the same as it had always been, where Palpatine expressed interest in the things Anakin was doing, what he was learning, and complimented him on how strong he was. Asked him to demonstrate using the Force for him.

“Absolutely incredible,” Palpatine had said, watching Anakin levitate the chair next to him with ease. “It comes so naturally to you. You truly are a step above all the other students your age.”

“You really think so?” Anakin said eagerly like he had on Naboo years ago, setting the chair down a little sloppily. “Master Obi-Wan says I need to spend more time practicing, but I think I already have it down.”

“I agree,” Palpatine said, smiling. “I have never seen a chair levitated with such grace.”

It went on like that for a while. Every few months, Palpatine would invite him over to his Senate office for lunch, and it was just so _easy_. So comfortable. It was a time — and the Chancellor reassured Anakin of this when he felt insecure — where he could just sit back and relax, talk about his life, talk about the fun things and the annoying things. There would be sweets, always something tasty, and Anakin kind of got the impression without asking that this was something Palpatine had always wanted — a son. A nephew. Something like that. Someone to spoil, someone to care about. And Anakin _loved_ it.

It was never like this in the temple. Obi-Wan was good to him, and Anakin didn’t know what he would do without him, but sometimes he was just so _restrictive._ Master Obi-Wan was just that — his master. A man dedicating his life to teaching Anakin what he knew. And Anakin was so, so grateful for that, he _was_ , but sometimes it was just…stifling. Sometimes, it just felt like Obi-Wan didn’t understand. Didn’t even try.

But Palpatine did.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” Palpatine would always say when Anakin came over, and Obi-Wan said that sometimes too, but when Obi-Wan said it Anakin knew he couldn’t _really_ let loose without getting scolded or corrected in some way. But with Palpatine, it was never corrections and reprimands. It was always, “It’s such a pity that no one else really seems to understand you.”

Anakin couldn’t agree more. No one else _did_ understand him. Because like Palpatine said, he _was_ special, he _was_ different, he _was_ leagues above everyone else. He was being held back when really he was ready for so much more. More responsibility, more power. Why couldn’t Obi-Wan just _get_ that?

Anakin wasn’t stupid, wasn’t blind. He was old enough now to understand that there was a conflict of interests here. He couldn’t do all the things Palpatine encouraged him to do, the things he _wanted_ to do, and still be Obi-Wan’s Padawan. So, he decided, he would simply have to get knighted as quickly as he possibly could.

That became the goal. Per Palpatine’s advice he didn’t actually tell Obi-Wan this, didn’t tell him _any_ of this. He never once told Obi-Wan what Palpatine said to him. Because Obi-Wan didn’t understand. And because Palpatine told him not to.

“But Obi-Wan is my master,” Anakin always said, hesitant. “I’m supposed to be open and honest with him. I don’t want to hide things from him.”

“Think about it, Anakin,” Palpatine would always say patiently. “If Obi-Wan found out I’ve been giving you advice behind his back, do you think he would appreciate that? Or would he stop you from coming to see me?”

“But the Jedi encourage people to take wisdom from all walks of life,” Anakin said. “That’s why they let me hang out with you in the first place, because they think I can learn from you. And Obi-Wan knows you’re my friend, he wouldn’t do that!”

“We cannot be sure,” the Chancellor said simply. “I don’t know how I would cope if I didn’t get to see you anymore, Anakin. Don’t you think it’s for the best that we keep this between us?”

It felt wrong. It went against everything Anakin had been taught as a Jedi. Keeping things in, not using the Force to understand, discuss, analyze. Keeping things to himself, shutting his feelings in instead of not letting them influence his decisions. He told Palpatine as much.

“But I’m supposed to not let my emotions determine my actions,” Anakin said, torn, as if he were the rope in a game of tug of war, with Obi-Wan pulling on one end and Palpatine the other. It was confusing. He hated it. “What you’re telling me is against the Jedi way.”

“You are no ordinary Jedi, Anakin,” Palpatine said. “I have said it before, and I’ll say it again as many times as I need to. You are so much more than any of them. I simply don’t want to see you tied down. I want you to rise to your greatest potential. Isn’t that what you want, too?”

It was. But that didn’t make it right.

Anakin wasn’t exactly sure what age he was, then, when he realized that visits with Palpatine usually left him feeling worse than he had to begin with.

He couldn’t explain it, but something he had looked forward to so much in the past was beginning to make him absolutely _miserable._ More accurately, he thought, he made _himself_ miserable. Because Palpatine was never once anything but kind, decent, and honest with him…all he did was continue to point out how strong Anakin had become, how much more advanced he was than the other Padawans, how sooner than later he’d be a fully fledged Jedi Knight ready to fix the galaxy by force, if necessary, to the similar vision that both of them shared of how things _should_ be.

And it was all _true_ , that was why it was so confusing. Palpatine was never anything but absolutely and brutally honest. He didn’t mince words, he didn’t sugarcoat things. He saw things how they really were, and opened Anakin’s eyes to new revelations. So when he said that Anakin was sure to be the strongest Jedi in the Order one day, Anakin had no reason not to believe him. When the Chancellor agreed that no, that thing Master Windu said _wasn’t_ fair, that thing Obi-Wan wouldn’t let him do on that mission _wasn’t_ fair, Anakin knew it must be true. Not that he thought Palpatine was perfect, of course not. But he was usually _right_ , that was the thing. Everything he said always made sense, even if it wasn’t exactly what Anakin wanted to hear. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t, but it was always _true_.

Ok, well, maybe not _always._ Like that one time, when he’d come to his friend in confidence, whispered the words that he’d only so far told to Padmé, and was too terrified and disgusted by himself to ever tell Obi-Wan, the one person in whom he knew he _should_ be confiding….

“I did something bad,” he’d confessed, stricken, hyperconscious of the soft velvety couch under him, the lingering ache at his right elbow, and Palpatine’s comforting presence at his side. “Very bad. Awful. _Evil_.”

“Bad enough you can’t tell me?”

His slaughter of the Tusken camp was something Anakin remembered so vividly he could almost still taste the sand in his mouth. Hear the awful screeching war cries. Feel the touch of rough-hewn fabric in which he had wrapped his mother’s body. The memory of that night sent such a chill down his spine that even a solid decade of Jedi training could not stop him from shivering here in the comfort and safety of Palpatine’s office, its walls and floor and sofas the same shade of red as the blood Anakin had spilt onto the sand.

When he confessed what he had done, he wasn’t exactly sure what Palpatine was going to say, or what Anakin _wanted_ him to say. But it had still shocked him, and stuck with him, how eerily casual Palpatine’s voice had sounded, especially considering the words coming out of his mouth.

“An understandable reaction,” the Chancellor said lightly, “To such a gruesome crime.”

Anakin blinked, stunned. “I don’t know if you heard me right, sir. I said I butchered every single one of them.”

“Revenge is a natural instinct, Anakin,” Palpatine had said, and though he tried not to think back to that conversation — tried not to think about anything related to the Sand People — Anakin couldn’t help but remember how uncomfortable the Chancellor’s hand on his back had felt. He didn’t know why, because by that point he’d trusted the Chancellor enough to touch him in comfort, the way he’d trusted very few people, ever, to do so…but it _had_ made him uncomfortable. And it shouldn’t have, because this was a friend offering his support, but every word that had come out of his mouth had just made Anakin feel so _dirty_ , Anakin had come to vent about this horrible thing he had done and left feeling even worse….

“Just because the Jedi tell you that revenge is wrong, doesn’t make it true,” Palpatine continued. “It is simply a fact of life. In fact, I believe if I had been in your position, I would have done exactly the same thing.”

“That — no,” Anakin stammered, trying to understand. “My mom wouldn’t have wanted this. I know she wouldn’t have.”

“You haven’t seen her in ten years,” Palpatine pointed out, lightly resting his other hand on Anakin’s elbow, which was still swollen and painful from the loss of his forearm. Anakin tensed, but didn’t move away. “The Jedi kept you from going to her. How do you know she wouldn’t want this if you haven’t spoken with her in a decade?”

Frowning deeply, Anakin shook his head. “No, that’s not — it’s not _like_ that,” he said. “They didn’t deny me from seeing her, they just —”

“They just never offered to arrange such a trip,” Palpatine said sadly. He looked and sounded positively morose. “Nor did they ever make an attempt to free her from slavery. Does it really seem like they cared?”

“Of course they do,” Anakin said, realizing it was a lie as he said it. He fell mute.

“I’m simply not so sure,” the Chancellor remarked, shaking his head in disdain. “It absolutely breaks my heart to see you so hurt, and your superiors so apathetic.”

Anakin didn’t know what to say, so he just said, “I did wrong.”

“Right and wrong are a point of view, Anakin. And _I_ think you did right.”

“Obi-Wan wouldn’t think so,” Anakin said miserably. “He would hate me for it.”

“It grieves me that he does not seem to understand you like I do,” Palpatine said. “You deserve so much better than his scrutiny.”

“I need to tell him. I just don’t know how.”

The Chancellor hummed, deep in thought. “I am not certain that’s the best course of action. Master Kenobi is emotionally tied to the Jedi dogma. I fear what he might be forced to do, were you to tell him the truth. Report your actions to the Jedi Council, certainly.”

Anakin balked. Obi-Wan wouldn’t do that to him. Would he? “Do you really think —”

“I do,” Palpatine replied, appearing absolutely certain. “I think for now, this secret had best stay between us, don’t you, Anakin?”

He swallowed thickly. He was shaking. “Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“ _You_ were right to come to me, Anakin,” the Chancellor said. Then he leaned in, and even though they were alone, he spoke next in a hushed way as if it were even more secret than the secrets Anakin had already spilled. “And you were right to do what you did to those savages.”

Maybe he had been, Anakin thought, knowing full well that if he were in that position again, he would do the same damn thing. Slaughter, murder, vengeance. _Revenge._ But the fact that, maybe it was possibly, perhaps, sort of okay to have done all that didn’t stop him from going straight home to collapse in a sobbing heap on his bed, hating himself more than he had ever thought possible.

So, maybe Palpatine wasn’t always right, or maybe he was. But what he _definitely_ was, for absolute sure, was Anakin’s friend. His mentor, even. Possibly even like a father, or a grandfather. An uncle. Anakin had never had _any_ of those things, and he didn’t entirely know what that sort of relationship might entail, but he knew — he _knew_ — Palpatine had his best interest at heart. He just…had to. Right?

See, as it turned out, there were very few things in this galaxy of which Anakin was absolutely certain. Slavery was bad, for example, that was one. Helping people is good, that was another — instilled in him, along with the first, by his mother all those years ago. Slavery bad, helping good — that dichotomy could be applied to everything, really. Republic good, Separatists bad. Sith bad, Jedi good. 

But — was _that_ even right anymore?

Because that was where it got a little…complicated. Up until maybe three hours ago — okay, a few days ago, when they’d asked him to commit treason — _okay_ , a few _months_ ago when Ahsoka had been mercilessly cast aside and abandoned by her own family — Anakin had been absolutely, unflinchingly certain of what was good, and what was bad. Now, he wasn’t quite sure at all.

Because another thing of which Anakin was absolutely certain was that Sheev Palpatine had always been a close and loyal friend who cared deeply about Anakin’s well-being and happiness, and that simply did not fall in line with the mantra of “Sith bad”. 

It just. It didn’t make sense. Anakin had been sitting here, in the Council chambers, for an hour now, maybe two, just trying to make sense of it. Just trying to hold on until Obi-Wan came back, like he’d promised. And he couldn’t make sense of it, and he couldn’t hold out. Because it just didn’t. Make. Sense.

The Sith were bad. Bad bad bad. Evil. Horrible. Like Dooku, and like Maul. Palpatine was kind. Friendly. He cared about the Republic. He cared about Anakin. He cared about justice, security, all the things the Republic really needed to recover from this insane war.

(The little voice in his head that belonged to Anakin’s conscience, and coincidentally sounded just like Obi-Wan, reminded him: this insane war of which Palpatine himself was an orchestrator of.)

But. No. There was a lot about this whole situation Anakin didn’t understand. He couldn’t just — what if there was some purpose? What if starting the war had actually been for a reason, a _good_ reason? And if so, what was that reason? What reason could possibly be worth the cost of all the lives that Anakin had tried to save?

(All the lives he tried to save, to make up for the ones he had taken.)

Anakin didn’t know, but there was a lot he didn’t know, and didn’t _need_ to know. It wasn’t Palpatine’s job to tell Anakin every single secret. It was understandable, Anakin told himself, that Palpatine wouldn’t reveal himself as the Sith Lord. Right? Like he had said, back in his office, a few hours ago when the sun was still up….

_had I revealed myself to you, or to anyone else, the Jedi would have hunted me down and murdered me without trial…If only you could know how I have longed to tell you…_ *

So. That made sense. Yes, Palpatine had lied to him, but as his friend had aptly pointed out, Anakin had lied right back. Not just to him, but Anakin had lied to just about everyone he knew. Maybe not to Padmé, but certainly to everyone else, to Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and Rex and all the Jedi. Lied about his marriage, lied about — about Tatooine. Lied by omission about the fact that he sometimes, sort of, occasionally, craved slicing his lightsaber through peoples’ hearts and feeling the life be ripped away from their bodies. So who was he, really, to judge Palpatine’s lies when his actions, all along, had been good? Had benefited the Republic as a whole?

_You’re a Sith Lord!_

_I am. I am also your friend._

He was so confused.

Anakin didn’t know how long he sat there, in the Council chambers, confused and lonely and alone and so, so scared.

He didn’t know what to do. He just didn’t know. Which was exactly why he needed Obi-Wan.

The sun had set some time ago. The sky outside the circular room was dark. He’d sat here through the rosy sunset, the entirety of the twilight. Muted lights gave this room a haunted feel. And Anakin didn’t know why, but he kept imagining, over and over and over again —

Death. Murder. Burning this very temple to the ground.

His face was wet. Tears fell from his eyes and streaked down his neck, wetting his collar. His body was slack, weak where he sat in Obi-Wan’s chair. He had his own, now, apparently, but at this point, even after all his complaining, all his righteous fury, he wasn’t even sure he wanted _that_ anymore.

He only wanted one thing.

Okay, two things.

Three.

He wanted his wife to be safe. He wanted his baby. And he wanted Obi-Wan to get here _right now_. 

In his mind, he pictured it: a purple blade, striking down the Jedi’s greatest threat. Anakin was a Jedi. That should be what he wanted. He should have done it himself, when he’d had the chance.

But, Padmé.

Sitting here, passively waiting for Obi-Wan to arrive, it felt like —

It felt like Anakin was allowing Padmé to die. Like he was ensuring it.

_when I die…my knowledge dies with me_

He hunched over like he was going to be sick. A sob ripped through him, his entire body ridden with an unintelligible pain.

_perhaps it is simply a question of whether or not you love Obi-Wan Kenobi_

Master, please, hurry —

_more than you love your wife_

He was drowning. There was no hope. No hope except for Palpatine. And for Obi-Wan.

It was that same feeling he’d felt as a kid. That eternal tug-of-war between his two mentors, his father figures, each pulling on one of Anakin’s arms and refusing to let go, each trying to determine the fate of the galaxy, of the very universe itself.

_you are the Chosen One. Chosen by me._

By the end of all this…perhaps, even, by the end of today…Anakin knew…he would be calling one of those two men ‘Master’.

He just didn’t know yet which one it was going to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * All the italicized one-liners are from the scene in Stover’s novelization where Palpatine reveals his true identity to Anakin. If anyone hasn't read the book, it's obviously the same plot as the movie, but this scene in particular has a different emotional feeling than the film does. In the film, the emotions are kind of bland during that scene and the following one with Windu, and Anakin only becomes visibly distraught when he sees Windu and Palpatine fighting (I am not criticizing any acting here ok so do not assume I am, the behind the scenes make it very clear this was a directorial choice). In the novel, however, Anakin is an absolute anxious mess and is distraught from the get-go, even before Palpatine reveals the truth. It's clear he hasn't been sleeping a wink, hasn't eaten anything, he's basically dead on his feet and he's dizzy, delirious, not thinking clearly at all. 
> 
> All this to say, the thing that ultimately led me to writing this story was that I had a few anxiety attacks at work earlier this year and when I recently read through the novel again, everything Anakin felt physiologically in that scene was TO A TEE what I had felt. My personal interpretation of Anakin has always been deeply informed by his characterization in the novel, but it was only at this time that I realized it's because Stover writes him with genuine anxiety of the mental illness degree, and god if that isn't relatable. Please read the novel lol


	3. Ahsoka

After Ahsoka walked away from the Order, she had begun to wonder for the first time what it might be like to have a normal life. 

That was an abstract, of course, and a normal life could mean any number of different things. If she considered ‘normal’ to be non-Force sensitive…would she have grown up in the grasslands of Shili in a house with her birth family, a wooden home under a canopy of colorful trees, learning to craft with holistic medicinal herbs? Would she have moved to Kiros with the Togruta artisans, only to have been kidnapped by the Zygerrians and forced to work in a slave labor camp? Perhaps in another life she’d have been born human, and would have gone to school with the students she’d briefly taught at the Mandalorian Academy.

No matter what normal might mean, though, she certainly wasn’t it. A Force-sensitive ex-Jedi Togruta teen set adrift in the galaxy, trying to find her place. But even in her darkest moments, where she dreamed of another life, a life of stability and peace, a small part of her felt a little guilty for thinking that she had it bad at all. Because as much as her life wasn’t normal, and never had been, she was far from the most _abnormal_ person she knew. That honor (if one could call it an honor, and she didn’t think she could) without a doubt went to Anakin Skywalker.

Growing up in the temple, back in the days where she was a little girl daydreaming about what it might be like to be a Padawan, so much older and more mature than she had been back then, she had heard about him only a handful of times. All she knew was that he was a human boy that had come from the Outer Rim Territories — they had seemed _so_ far away, so exotic — that everyone called the Chosen One, and that he was being trained by the Sith-killer, Obi-Wan Kenobi. The very concept of the both of them had been so abstract, just like the concept of ‘normal’ was now, that she usually hadn’t paid talk of them any more than a passing thought.

That was, until the Clone War started, and they were all that the kids her age would ever talk about.

There were clips from the holonet that younglings would pass around on datachips, Skywalker and Kenobi fighting side-by-side in a field full of battle droids, perfectly deflecting every single blaster bolt, perfectly in sync with each other. Ahsoka remembered thinking it was pretty cool, and that she couldn’t wait to become a Padawan so she might face a little action and excitement herself, but the two men had still seemed sort of larger than life. Not quite legendary the way they were now, nearly four years into the war — but they hadn’t necessarily felt _real_. Tangible. Like they existed on a different plane of thought.

And they definitely didn’t feel normal. And when she met them, finally, stepping off a shuttle on Christophsis, she remembered thinking how tall they both were, especially Anakin. Larger than life, indeed. She remembered seeing them there, clad in a mix of armor plates and traditional Jedi robes, and the way they’d looked at her, like she was _so_ young, what was she doing out here, what had Master Yoda been thinking, sending _this_ snippy little youngling out to war….

Sometimes, she still wondered that part even now.

It turned out they were both a lot funnier than she’d imagined they would be. Obi-Wan was always teasing Anakin, and Anakin was always falling for it. They were also more kind than she had imagined, even Anakin — _especially_ Anakin, after he’d gotten used to the idea of this kid following him around. Seeing them in action for the first time had been _way_ different than seeing them on the holonet, and she’d slowly begun to understand what all the hype was about….

At first, Anakin hadn’t wanted her. Looking back, she wondered how he felt now about how he’d acted then. It had been hard not to take it personally when he’d backed up, shaking his head, saying _there’s been a little mix-up, the youngling isn’t with me._ It had hurt, honestly, but mostly she’d wondered what his _problem_ was, or was the problem with _her_ , was it _her_ that he didn’t want, and that he would be happy with any other Padawan? One less snippy and impulsive — one a little bit less like him?

Looking back now, it made her laugh. Looking back, it was so typical Anakin. Act first, think later. No filter, just blurting out his honest reaction. Unlike Obi-Wan, who had been nothing but kind and patient and welcoming to her from the start.

Master Kenobi, she remembered thinking there in the crystal city. Teacher of the Chosen One. Member of the Jedi Council. The Sith-killer.

She’d asked Obi-Wan about that months later, after she’d become comfortable around him but before Maul had resurfaced. She remembered he’d laughed, because no one had ever called him Sith-killer to his face before, but he recounted the brief tale to her of his duel with the Zabrak Sith on Naboo. The Sith had _definitely_ been an abstract concept to her back then, something that they taught about in classes on Jedi history, but the idea that they weren’t actually a legend, or even myth, had taken her a very long time to really wrap her head around.… 

Nowadays, however…she comprehended it much better than anyone should be able to.

The fight with Maul, only a few hours ago now, had been the most challenging in her life, and she’d walked away from it with an even greater respect for Obi-Wan than she’d ever had. But this hadn’t been simply a _duel_ , like all her ones with Ventress or Grievous or a disguised Barriss Offee. The stakes had been high enough going into the siege in the first place, but she hadn’t anticipated that this high stakes duel with an (ex-?)Sith Lord for the fate of Mandalore had _actually_ been about the fate of Anakin all along.

_He is the key…to everything_.

It chilled her to the bone, even now when Maul was secure in an impenetrable prison cell designed by ancient Mandalorians to contain Jedi. Even here, on this battle cruiser, heading back to Coruscant way faster than the speed of light — all she could think about, playing on a loop in her head —

_He has long been groomed for his role, as my master’s new apprentice._

Staring at the swirl of hyperspace without really seeing it, Ahsoka thought, it wasn’t true.

It wasn’t because it couldn’t be. Because she would know about it.

Just like she had told Maul, she _knew_ Anakin. He wouldn’t. He wasn’t. He couldn’t.

But was she sure? Was she absolutely, completely, beyond a doubt positive? Had she _been_ positive when she retorted to Maul, _your vision is flawed?_ Had she _really_?

…She needed to see Anakin. A-S-A-P.

Her comm blinked then, drawing her out of her thoughts. A cursory glance at who it was gave her the instinct that somehow, somewhere — someone else was wondering the same thing as she was now.

She took the call in a private room close to the bridge. Obi-Wan’s hologram filled the room with a soft blue light, and Ahsoka tried to smile at him. “Master Kenobi. I’m glad to hear from you.”

_“Ahsoka,”_ he said quietly, attempting a smile himself, but it came off as more of a grimace. _“What’s your status?”_

“I’m en route to Coruscant,” she said. “Maul is in custody.”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows raised thoughtfully. _“Really? That’s wonderful. A job well done.”_

“Thank you.”

_“Are you alone?”_

“Yes, Master,” she said out of habit, and nearly flinched at her own words. They felt odd on her tongue, almost unfamiliar, even though she’d spent ninety percent of her life saying them over and over and over.

_“Good,”_ he said. _“I’m heading back as well, and I need your help with something if you’ll be available.”_

“Jedi business?” she said coolly, but he shook his head, glancing away from her for a moment and then back, as if he were looking around for any eavesdroppers even though she could tell he was calling from the inside of his starfighter.

_“Personal, actually. Did you ever talk with Anakin after we spoke?”_

“No,” she replied, her worry suddenly feeling all the more justified. “I did speak with the Council — Masters Windu, Mundi, and Yoda — but they said he had gone to tell the Chancellor you were fighting with Grievous. I hope you calling me from hyperspace means you won?”

_“It does,”_ he said shortly, _“Grievous is dead, but that’s in the past now. There is something wrong with Anakin.”_ Obi-Wan paused, frowning deeply. _“You’re definitely alone?”_

His hesitance would have been almost comical had the words _there’s something wrong with Anakin_ not preceded them. “I am, Master.”

Obi-Wan nodded. _“At that very meeting with the Chancellor, Palpatine revealed to Anakin that he is in fact the Sith we have been looking for. He is Sidious.”_ He allowed Ahsoka a long moment to absorb this, her lips parting slightly as the words sunk in. He appeared visibly shaken as he continued. _“Anakin returned to the temple and called me. He was…sobbing. He said that Palpatine was trying to turn him to the dark side. He….”_

His voice broke. Ahsoka had never seen him like this — his composure was not only shaken, but his guard was completely down. And given the context of what he was saying — yeah, hers would be, too. It was definitely getting there, at least. “What is it, Master?”

_“I…would have liked for him to have told you all of this…I only just found out myself, but….”_

“These are desperate times,” Ahsoka agreed. “He can get mad at us _after_ we’ve saved him from the Sith.”

_“Right,”_ Obi-Wan said, almost smiling. _“Long story short…Padmé is pregnant. It’s Anakin’s. He’s been having visions of her death in childbirth ever since we returned from the Outer Rim Sieges. Palpatine is trying to convince him that the Sith have a way to save her, if Anakin becomes his new apprentice, and it seems he is making a very compelling case.”_

_Oh._ That was a lot of bombshells. More than anything, though, more even than the idea of a _baby_ , she couldn’t believe that — “So Maul was right,” she breathed, staring through rather than at the hologram of Obi-Wan. 

_“Maul? What do you mean?”_

She was about to hit him with a bombshell of her own, it seemed. Hadn’t she _just_ been thinking about this three minutes ago, thinking about — “Maul told me that he’s been having visions, as well. Of Anakin. He said — he said his master, Darth Sidious, had been _grooming_ Anakin for _years_ , into the perfect Sith apprentice. The only reason Maul came back to Mandalore at all was to try to lure _you_ there with Anakin in tow so he could prevent his visions from playing out. He tried to get me to join him and overthrow Sidious, under the condition that I helped him kill Anakin.”

Obi-Wan looked as shocked as she felt, but he gathered himself quicker than she did. _“So now there are two Sith we have to keep away from my Padawan. Wonderful.”_ Ahsoka watched him think, drumming his fingers on the armrest of his cockpit — fidgeting was uncharacteristic for him. Her stomach was a knot. He continued, _“All right. We should get back to Coruscant close to the same time, I think. I’m going straight to the temple to find Anakin, assuming he’s actually listened to me for once and stayed put. As for you…is Maul secure?”_

“He is. He’s not going anywhere until someone lets him out.”

_“Good. I need you to go to Padmé and bring her to the temple.”_

Ahsoka raised one of her brows. “If she’s as stubborn as ever, that might be hard.”

_“I know it,”_ he said softly, a trace of a smile on his lips, _“But you just defeated Maul in combat. I think you’re up to this challenge.”_

She nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll go speak with Rex and make sure Maul will be taken care of. I’ll see you soon Master. Hopefully on better terms than our last face-to-face.”

_“I hope so, too,”_ he said, his smile fully formed now but not yet reaching his eyes. He made a motion with his hand to turn the comm off, but she saw him hesitate. _“Ahsoka, I hope you know that what happened to you was not something I supported. I tried to get through to the Council on your behalf, I promise you.”_

Ahsoka bit her lip and looked down. “I’m not really sure what to say to that.”

_“You don’t have to say anything_ ,” Obi-Wan said. _“If you still wish not to be a Jedi, I hope we can at least be friends.”_ His gaze softened and fell. “ _Though I understand if you choose not to forgive me. I just want you to know that I tried.”_

_Do or do not, Master_ , she thought numbly, not meeting his eye. She didn’t really want to have this conversation right now. She wasn’t sure she wanted to have it ever. So all she did was look up at him and say, “I’ll see you soon, Obi-Wan. As friends.”

He hesitated a moment more, then nodded in acceptance.

The call disconnected, and off she went to find her capt— her _commander_. There wasn’t exactly much she could tell Rex, but she did hold him in enough confidence to at least relay the whole, _there’s something wrong with Anakin_ , thing. The thinning of his mouth as he held back what he _really_ wanted to say indicated to her that he wished he could come along, protect his general from harm as he always did, but understood where the line between duty and friendship had to be drawn.

For a long while she considered marching down to Maul’s prison chamber and demanding from him just _why_ , exactly, he hadn’t bothered to mention that Darth Sidious was also, in fact, the Supreme Chancellor of the _entire_ Republic, but something held her back. Perhaps the idea that she had almost joined with him until he’d spoken of his desire to kill Anakin, who he had never even met….

Like Obi-Wan said. There were now _two_ Sith they had to keep away from her master.

Or maybe…maybe they had to keep her master away from the Sith.

Force help them all. This was _not_ good.

* * *

Ahsoka arrived to Coruscant and was met with utter chaos.

It wasn’t the planet itself — the battle over the atmosphere, the one that her masters had rushed off to last they met, had long since subsided. From her military experience she could still see the damage that had been done. Salvage crews and naval squadrons alike patrolled the outer reaches of the atmosphere, collecting debris and wrecked ships that had fallen into orbit of the planet. It was messy, a little disorganized, but not exactly chaotic.

The chaos, rather, was in the Force. Rather, her sense of it. _Rather_ , her sense of Anakin. Immediately she could tell, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Obi-Wan’s summary did not do the situation justice. Something had happened, something she didn’t understand, and given his sparse retelling of the current events, Ahsoka didn’t think Obi-Wan was too sure, either.

But she did as he bade her. She parted ways with Rex a little too hastily, jumped in a spare starfighter because it was the fastest thing that would get her over to Padmé’s senatorial apartments. The sky was dark here, the twilight already faded into artificially illuminated blackness, and she hoped Padmé was still awake, hoped she would agree to come, because more than any single thing in the universe right now, Ahsoka just wanted to see Anakin as quickly as she could.

Their last departure had been…a mixed bag. Suddenly she felt an intense pang of guilt at how mindlessly she had brushed him off. It really hadn’t been intentional, not at all, but there had been so much on her mind. She’d been so nervous about seeing him and about the Jedi and about Maul, that she hadn’t really expected him to cling to her like that, hadn’t anticipated his overwhelming need for attention, and of course she had wanted to hug him and catch up but she’d just been so _preoccupied_ ….

And now Anakin needed her. Had he needed her then, too, when she had brushed him off? Had he already been dealing with this chaos she felt in the Force, and she simply hadn’t noticed? Had he had any idea what was about to happen? And on that note, what _was_ about to happen? The Chancellor was a Sith, Anakin and Padmé were having a baby, what was _happening?_

Zooming through the different layers of the atmosphere, broadcasting on an open frequency a clearance code that Obi-Wan had transmitted to her…Ahsoka really hoped she was about to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be the first to confess that I'm bending the rules of the universe a little bit here by arguably shortening the time it takes to travel through hyperspace...but to be fair so did Disney..................... I don't think anyone was going to complain because this isn't fan fiction dot net but there ya go <3 many thanks everyone!
> 
> there may be a lot of set up here for a 7 chapter fic but like...it's so satisfying to me to actually give the characters the full picture, something that literally no one but Papa Palpatine ever gets in canon...like, Star Wars characters, you have literal ghosts. Please communicate better


	4. Padmé

Twilight was falling over 500 Republica when Padmé returned home after yet another long day of bureaucracy, and the only thought she had as she walked through her door was: _Why do I have to be pregnant_ _now?_

Don’t get her wrong. She was overjoyed. Every day that passed, every time the Coruscant sun rose and fell in the sky, she was one day closer to meeting her baby for the first time. Her baby, her precious baby, equal parts her and Anakin, a physical human being growing inside her that single-handedly served as the greatest testament of their love they could ever have. A baby that Padmé loved more and more every time she felt a little foot kick her in the diaphragm and knock the wind out of her. So of _course_ she was happy, thrilled, ecstatic. She was. 

But did this _really_ have to happen _now?_

The Republic was in complete disarray. No, that didn’t even do it justice. The Republic was failing. Crumbling. And as much as she tried, as much effort as Padmé exerted, it seemed she was completely and entirely powerless to stop it.

Palpatine’s power was growing at an exponential rate. Two-thousand senators had signed that petition, _two-thousand_ , and what did they have to show for it?

A list of names that Palpatine had probably already thrown right down the Senate Office Building’s garbage chute.

It would have been tough on any normal day, but it was a lot tougher when Padmé had an enormous belly and perpetually swollen ankles. She needed a day off.

And these _gowns_. Some of the ensembles she wore weighed a solid five kilos themselves. She had used to love all her Senate gowns, with their rich, velvety fabrics and luxurious beading. She’d loved putting on her wigs, each hair carefully woven in place by a variety of well-known designers back home. It had always felt like dress-up, fun and exciting. But now, when she was forced by circumstance to wear these enormous gowns to conceal her very secret pregnancy (which she was very excited about! but also tired of) she was starting to hate going to the Senate for that reason alone.

Why couldn’t she just sit at home like any normal mom, pampered by her husband, who would treat her like the goddess he thought she was? Who would rub her aching back, her sore feet, her tense shoulders? Why couldn’t she have _that_ husband, right now, when she needed him the most?

And then, deep in her reverie, that husband called her.

Picking up her comm, which was set by him to be only audio, she answered, “Anakin?”

_“I’m here.”_

Padmé gave him a moment to speak more, and frowned. “You know, normally the one who calls is the one who starts the conversation.”

She was hoping, foolishly perhaps, that such a light-hearted comment would garner any sort of response. An emotionless chuckle would even be enough for her. Instead she got, _“Where are you?_ ”

“I just got home,” she said, fingering a tangle out of her hair, pretending she wasn’t bothered by the bluntness of his question. “Where are you?”

_“Are you all right?”_ Anakin asked, ignoring her question, and she noticed his voice sounded kind of odd, kind of strained, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

“I’m fine, Ani,” she said. “What about you? Is something wrong?”

_“Don’t worry about me,”_ he said, sounding for a moment like his usual self. _“Just…stay there. Stay where you are. Don’t go to the Senate.”_

What? What was he — “Ani, it’s late. Why would I go to the Senate now?”

He made a frustrated noise, like halfway between a sigh and a scoff. _“Just — just don’t go, okay? Just —”_

She heard him exhale again, and now she was getting worried. “Anakin, what’s wrong?”

_“Nothing,”_ he said, and she was so used to him saying that by now that she thought it must be a reflex, and he seemed to think so, too when he added, _“Everything. I don’t know. Just — I love you, okay? Just don’t go anywhere. It’s gonna be okay, Padmé, I promise.”_

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you,” she reminded him, trying to include a hint of playfulness in her voice.

There was a long pause. So long, in fact, that for a moment Padmé thought he had disconnected. But then he said, sounding like it cost him great effort, _“I’m going to keep you safe, Padmé. I swear I will. I swear I will.”_

Any trace of a smile fell from her lips. He’d been repeating these things, these same things, for days now. She didn’t know what else she could do at this point. She had absolutely no ideas.

“Hey,” she said gently, holding the comm close to her mouth, as if it would bring her closer to him. “Come over here. Come home. Why don’t we just relax tonight, like we did when you came back from the Outer Rim Sieges? It was only a few days ago but it feels so far away. Come be with me.”

Another long, silent pause. _“I can’t,”_ he whispered. _“There’s something I have to do.”_

“What?” she said desperately, trying to reach him. Trying to understand him. “What do you have to do? What’s more important our love?”

_“I…I don’t know yet. I don’t know anything.”_ He stopped talking, and she was left absolutely speechless. She heard him heave a great breath. _“Just stay where you are.”_

And then he hung up.

Shaking her head in dismay, she made her way to her walk-in closet to take her dress off, letting it plop to the ground in a big thump. Her husband, she thought. She didn’t know what to think about him right now. She didn’t know what to do with him. She didn’t know how she could make him understand two very basic, fundamental things, two things that any solid marriage needed to be true if it was going to thrive: that she needed him to be there for her right now, and that everything was going to be all right.

Because right now, he very much did _not_ understand the second one, and he was so preoccupied with his sureness that things _wouldn’t_ be all right that he couldn’t even begin to approach the first. 

Padmé sighed again. She’d been doing that a lot lately. 

Why couldn’t they just be happy, and carefree, and in love? Why did they have to have this life of secrecy and deception? Why couldn’t they just run away to Naboo, leave all their troubles behind, forget about the plotting and the politics and these haunting, terrifying dreams he kept having….

She donned a comfortable woolen dress, grabbed a snack, and made her way to her living area, fantasizing that Anakin would listen to her for once and show up to her apartment, throw his arms around her in a grand romantic gesture and kiss her with all the passion and love he had to give.

And then, fifteen minutes into a holoserial later, a Jedi showed up at her door. It just wasn’t the one she had expected.

It was his apprentice.

“Ahsoka?” Padmé said incredulously, complete and utter bewilderment flooding through her. What on Coruscant —

The former Jedi Padawan stood tall and proud in her clothes of blue and gray. Her montrals had grown a few inches since Padmé had last seen her, the stripes on her lekku thinner and curved. 

Captain Typho was there as well, coming in behind Ahsoka. “I’m sorry to intrude, Senator,” he said, “But she says it’s urgent.”

“It is,” Ahsoka said, holding out a hand, palm facing toward Padmé to indicate getting up was not necessary. She sat down next to Padmé, who couldn’t help but think how much older the girl seemed than last they met. “There’s something wrong with Anakin.”

_Tell me about it,_ Padmé thought, but that wasn’t exactly the most proper response to seeing an old friend for the first time since representing her at her military court tribunal….

“It’s okay, Captain,” Padmé said over Ahsoka’s shoulder, and Gregar nodded, leaving them alone. Padmé looked at Ahsoka. “First of all, hello.”

Ahsoka gave her a joyless smile. “Hi. Sorry. I seem to have lost all my manners after being away from Obi-Wan so long.”

Despite the situation, Padmé laughed. Then, she realized abruptly that the nightclothes she was wearing left her baby bump very pronounced, and she placed her hand on her belly. “I have some news.”

Ahsoka’s lips curved upward again, but this time a light was brought to her eyes. “I heard.”

Padmé blinked. “You did?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka said slowly. “From Obi-Wan. Who heard it from Anakin.”

Oh. And that was when Padmé realized, definitively, that there really _was_ something wrong with Anakin, if he actually felt driven to finally, _finally_ tell Obi-Wan the truth.

_do you think Obi-Wan might be able to help us?_

_we don’t need his help._

The look on her face must have said it all, and Ahsoka nodded in apparent understanding. “I have some news as well,” she said. “And you’re not going to like it.”

Padmé blinked again, apprehension pouring into her like water filling an empty vase. So Ahsoka began to fill her in. 

It turned out, Padmé realized as Ahsoka spoke, that feeling she’d been having, that the Republic was about to crash and shatter into a million, billion, trillion pieces? Yeah, except it actually was. Not just a feeling. It was real. All because the man in charge of it, the man who had ignored her petition, the man who had been slowly acquiring explicitly dictatorial powers and the man who she had once considered a friend, was the Sith Lord that the Jedi had been looking for for the duration of the Clone War. Which, incidentally, that man had also created by himself.

It was not a long conversation. Padmé did not need convincing, for there was not a single ounce of her that did not believe it. Not after all the struggles she had faced in the Senate, and all the times he had passive-aggressively put her down. All she needed right now, having been enlightened of the awful truth, was the same thing she had needed an hour ago. A day off, and a husband who was not having a mental breakdown.

She inhaled, realizing why Ahsoka was here before the girl could even say so. Realizing exactly what it was, precisely, that was wrong with Anakin.

Palpatine was what. The Chancellor. The Sith. Anakin’s friend.

Oh, not friend, she thought like a punch in the gut, or a baby’s foot to the diaphragm. Abusers were not friends.

Oh, Naboo gods and goddesses, please intervene, because they were going to need a _lot_ of help here.

Ahsoka said they needed to go to the Jedi Temple, that she had spoken with Obi-Wan, who had gone to talk Anakin down — Padmé explicitly refrained from asking, “Talk him down from what?” — and eight months of pregnancy couldn’t stop Padmé from rising quickly to her feet before Ahsoka could even finish her sentence.

There was only one thing that gave Padmé pause. _Just — stay there,_ Anakin had said to her over the comm, raw desperation in his voice. _Just stay where you are_ —

_I’m sorry, Ani_ , she thought decisively, _but this time, you’re the one that needs saving. You just don’t know it yet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rally the troops, muster the rohirrim, we ride at dawn to save Anakin................is what I would say if next chapter wasn’t from a new POV ;) who could it be?????? someone evil perhaps? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	5. Sidious

Darth Sidious would consider himself the most patient man in the galaxy by leagues.

It was hardly even a competition. One did not make it day by day through tedious government bureaucracy and squabbling diplomats and be considered impatient. One did not spend a decade meticulously poisoning the mind of the Force’s child and be considered impatient. One did not spend their entire life in the pursuit of total galactic domination, crafting every single decision around that one final goal, and be considered impatient. No, the essence of the dark side itself was of patience, and so was its master. So was he.

There were setbacks over the years, of course, occasionally. Every now and then the Jedi managed to foil a plan, or a motion failed to be enacted in the Senate. Usually it was the fault of the same few, Organa or Amidala or Mothma. But the victories vastly outnumbered the setbacks, and thus Sidious remained patient. Continued in his efforts. Worked toward that final, ultimate goal with a passion befitting the most powerful man in the galaxy. 

They were hours away, now, from what would effectively be the beginning of his retirement, when in through the door to his private office strode Mace Windu, followed by three of his lackeys, all of whom were dead barely a minute later, impaled by a red blade. The red then met purple in a glorious clash, an entertaining little detour that he was sure he’d claim victory of, as well….

They called Windu the greatest duelist of the Jedi Order. Sidious had personally called Skywalker as much, many times to the boy’s face, adding coals to the fire of his already flaming ego…and speaking of whom, the boy was due any minute now, drawn to his new master like a mewling pup was drawn to shelter in a storm…Windu struck at him and Sidious evaded, buying his time, waiting for his new apprentice to arrive and don his new mantle, to give into his own darkness with finality….

Minutes passed. The boy did not come. Sidious would have to adapt, for that was what he did best. Adapt, and conquer. He did not feel the boy’s presence nearby. He was not in this building. Unexpected, unplanned for, but workable. Sidious was not omniscient, after all. He was simply very good at predicting the moves that his chess pieces would make. But Skywalker had a mind of his own, sometimes, and occasionally Sidious wondered if perhaps he should have just taken the easy path and enslaved the boy by force….

Clashing his sword against Windu’s, he devised a new plan. If the boy did not want to come to him, then he would simply have to go to the boy. There was risk, as there was with every plan, but the last time he saw Skywalker on this very day, a shaking heap of susceptible fear and dread, he had soaked up every word Sidious had said, had been swayed by each thread Sidious had woven…although….

_Perhaps it is simply a question of whether you love Obi-Wan Kenobi more than you love your wife._

Could that, perhaps…?

No. No, there was nothing to fear. Perhaps the boy just needed one final persuasion.

The Jedi would take him for a coward when his new, revised plan was enacted. But the effect it would have on Skywalker…all of Sidious’s hints proven true, that the Jedi were taking over, that corruption and chaos would run rampant…not to mention his obsession, his irksome little wife….

He surrendered. His lightsaber flew from his hand through the shattered window of his office, and he fell back. “Wait!” he cried in a terrified voice, equal parts Palpatine and Sidious. He looked up into Mace Windu’s eyes and pretended beg. Pretended to plead. A Sith Lord did not beg, just as a Sith Lord was never defenseless. A Sith was an actor, and the galaxy was his theater. He could play any part. In fact, he had a tendency to play _every_ part. As he would play with Mace Windu now. “Don’t kill me, please!”

“You are under arrest, my lord,” Windu spat at him, bitter contempt filling his voice. Sidious wanted to laugh. The unemotional Jedi Master, indeed. 

“Don’t kill me!” Palpatine’s voice called out, “Anything but that!”

“So you surrender?” Windu said, purple lightsaber half a meter away from Sidious, who nodded and trembled and consciously leaked fear out into the Force.

“I do, I do, just please, don’t kill me!”

Never taking his eye off Sidious for a moment, never flinching, lightsaber not wavering an inch, Windu called for assistance from the Jedi Temple. The sky was dark, now, and Sidious played the part of Palpatine so well, cowering and shivering there with stun cuffs around his wrists. The second time in barely a week. How bothersome.

It was late when they took him to the Jedi Temple, landing in a hangar near the top of the tallest spire, and he could _feel_ it, the boy was close, this would all be over with soon and Sidious could ignore this minor delay of Protocol 66….

And indeed he and his adorable little escort of Temple Guards and Jedi Masters had nearly made it toward the hangar bay doors when the Force lit up, thunderous and volatile, and Sidious knew he had made the right decision in coming here.

“Chancellor!” a voice called out to him, and the Force rumbled in cacophonous symphony. An orchestra of terror and suspense. “No, don’t hurt him!”

“Anakin!” he cried out over his shoulder in the Chancellor’s voice, unable to see the boy but able to sense him, a nexus of fear, an eruption of dread and unfiltered hatred. “Anakin, please, help me! They’re going to kill me, Anakin! You’re the only one who can stop them!”

“I need him!” Skywalker yelled at someone, “Let me go, I need him, please don’t hurt him, please —”

“Quiet,” Windu hissed at the Sith, motioning to the Temple Guards to proceed. Their hands tightened around Sidious’s arms and pushed him toward the hangar bay doors. “You’ve poisoned that boy enough as it is.”

“Don’t you see, Anakin?” Palpatine’s voice called out, “I told you, didn’t I? Look at what they’re doing to me! I’m telling you, the Republic is next! They’re taking over!”

“Let me through!” the boy yelled, his voice sounding raw and frightened as a child. “I need to see him, get _off_ —”

Satisfied, and certain of the outcome, Sidious struggled against the grip of the chess pieces holding on to him in an act of false desperation and turned toward the boy. “This is your chance, Anakin! You must choose — the Jedi or the one you love!”

But as he spoke, he saw something that he had not seen previously, had not expected, had not heard over the ruckus of his own shouting, and Skywalker’s. And what he saw made him realize that the boy had _already_ made his choice, and he had in fact chosen the one he loved.

What Darth Sidious saw then made him think for the first time ever in his life that this was what _fear_ must feel like. Fear that his plan might not quite proceed after all. Because at the start of this day, there had only been one obstacle remaining in his conquest, one final thing that had needed to be done away with in order for Sidious’s words to finally stick in in the boy’s mind. And that obstacle _had_ been discarded, sent thousands of lightyears away to do the Jedi’s dirty work for them, and hopefully die in the process — and now that obstacle was back.

Kenobi was here.

Here, in this hangar, making a great effort to restrain the boy. Kenobi was _here_ , the one final person that stood in the way of his empire. The one person who had any meaningful influence on Skywalker at all besides Sidious himself. The one person that Sidious had been trying to do away with, on and off, for the last ten years.

And in that moment of brief, uncharacteristic fear, that moment in which time seemed to stand still, his eyes locked with Kenobi’s and he saw in them a look of triumph. A look of boasting. A look that told Sidious with great, clarified certainty: _You have lost._

Then time started moving again, and he watched the boy wrestle against the iron grip of his mentor, struggle to reach the Sith in terrified desperation — and Sidious thought, _Not yet._

In one final show of power, before the blast doors closed behind him, Sidious called, “She is going to die, Anakin!”

The Force erupted like the volcanos of Mustafar, and Sidious smiled. He had done all he could; the dark side would have to do the rest.


	6. Padmé II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know you did too much fic research when you watch the Addams Family (1991) and your main thought is that the villain is an abusive groomer. Hashtag relatable amiright, ok enjoy the show

On the ride to the Jedi Temple Ahsoka filled Padmé in, saying that Obi-Wan had told her that Anakin had told him about some visions, some reason Anakin had to believe that Padmé was going to die in childbirth, and that they didn’t really know more than that but they thought Palpatine was using them to exploit Anakin, somehow, and —

“I know about the visions,” Padmé said, suddenly feeling more than a little guilty that she hadn’t been doing more, hadn’t been doing everything she could to make Anakin feel better, to ease his anxieties. But truly, honestly, she hadn’t realized how deep it went. She knew he wasn’t sleeping well, she knew he’d been withdrawn, but she’d pegged it down to nerves about finding out he was a father, not to mention all the things the Jedi Council was asking him to do with Palpatine…the thing was, Anakin had been acting strange, yes, but really not all _that_ strange. Anakin had _always_ had nightmares, had _always_ had struggles with the Jedi Council. And yes, of course Padmé remembered the dreams about his mother, and more vividly even than that she remembered the lengths he’d gone through to avenge her death. But it wasn’t until that speeder ride with Ahsoka, and wasn’t until what happened next, that she _actually_ thought Anakin might possibly do something similar for _her_.

She wasn’t blind. She wasn’t a fool. She knew that his feelings for her were all-consuming, she knew he would do anything for her. He had already done a whole mess of stupid things out of a perceived duty to keep her safe. But she hadn’t actually thought that _this_ was another one of those times. And maybe that was on her.

But when they arrived in the hangar of a spire of the Jedi Temple, and Padmé figured out what was happening, she realized Anakin was _indeed_ about to do something very, very stupid to keep her safe.

She hadn’t realized, at first, who had been the one to shout “She is going to die, Anakin!” across the echoing, mostly empty hangar bay. She’d been distracted for a moment by a surging cramp in her abdomen, a momentary instance of breathlessness. Nothing to worry about, she’d been having them for a few days, adding to the hundred places she already felt discomfort, yet another side effect of lugging around twenty-five extra kilos of bodyweight. But then the contraction passed and she could focus on what was unfolding before her — Obi-Wan, struggling to restrain Anakin, who was attempting to wrestle out of his grip — and just before the blast doors slammed shut, she caught one tiny little glimpse of Palpatine, too, and realized who those words had belonged to.

Ahsoka moved quickly down the hangar toward her mentors, and Padmé waddled after her, and she could easily hear Anakin shouting:

“ _No_ , no, let go, I need to _talk_ to him, I need to see him, let me go —” 

She could hear Obi-Wan saying something but couldn’t make it out. 

“No, there’s no _time_ , why is no one listening to me when I say there’s no _time_ , I need to go see him —”

Obi-Wan noticed them over Anakin’s shoulder and nodded his head in Padmé’s direction. “Anakin, there, look —”

“— and no one is taking this seriously, _you heard him_ she’s going to die, he knows something and I need to find out what, Padmé’s going to _die_ , Obi-Wan —”

“I’m here, Ani!” 

Padmé didn’t know why, realized a second too late how imperceptive it was on her part, but somehow she expected him to wheel around, sweep her into his arms like he had when he’d just come back from the Outer Rim, and realize instantaneously that everything was going to be all right, because nothing could hurt them as long as they were together. What Anakin did instead was swing around on his heel, stare at her with widened eyes, and shout at her, livid, “What are you doing here? I told you to _stay home!_ ”

And _because_ Padmé had not even remotely expected to be greeted this way by her husband, the love of her life, whose bloodshot red eyes looked as if he’d been crying for hours, she could do nothing in that moment but stand there and gape at him.

Obi-Wan intervened. “It was my idea,” he said, placing a hand on Anakin’s chest as if to hold him back, and Padmé was beginning to understand what Ahsoka had meant by ‘talk him down.’ “I asked Ahsoka to bring her here so that you could see she’s safe.”

“But you’re not safe here!” Anakin yelled through what sounded like a sob. His voice was cracking and congested, like his throat was swollen. “You’re not safe anywhere, because no one will listen to me when I say that _I need to see him!_ ”

“And what would you do if you did see him?”

“I don’t know! That’s why I need to go, because he’s the only one who can help, he knows what to do, he told me he did!”

“Hang on,” Ahsoka said, shaking her head. She, like Obi-Wan (and probably like Padmé, as well, if she could see her own face) was staring at Anakin like he was a bomb they had to diffuse. Padmé got the impression Ahsoka was just as shocked to see Anakin in this terrified, panicking state as she was. “What exactly did he say he knows?”

“How to stop people from dying!” Anakin said emphatically, waving his arm in the air as if stating the obvious. “He said if I help him he’ll show me how!”

“Help him?” Obi-Wan said, his brows drawn together. “By becoming his new Sith apprentice?”

Anakin stared at him. “No, I — I don’t know. It’s confusing.”

“And where exactly did he find out how to stop people from dying?” Ahsoka asked.

“From —” Anakin started, but cut himself off, bit his lip. He looked down at the ground. “I don’t know.”

“Yes you do,” Obi-Wan said, his voice the height of calm. He spoke as a teacher trying to guide his student to an answer they already knew.

“From his Sith master!” The very thought seemed to fill Anakin with misery, and shame. Another half-sob shook through his body, and Padmé couldn’t help but to step forward and place one of her hands on his chest, and the other on his back, hoping he would melt into her arms the way he always did. Wishing she could take away his fears, his sorrow, whisk it away into a box and smash that box with a laser blast. But for once, quite unlike usual, he barely seemed to notice she was there. And he was shaking, trembling like he’d been out in the cold for hours.

“Exactly,” Obi-Wan said from Anakin’s other side. “Turning to the dark side will not bring you the answers you are looking for.”

It wasn’t until now, with her hands steadying him, that Padmé realized Anakin was swaying slightly on his feet, and she noticed with concern how shadowy and pale his face looked under the puffiness and despair. How chaotic his hair was, how pronounced the dark circles under his eyes were.

“I didn’t say I wanted to,” Anakin snapped. “He’ll still tell me, I _know_ he will, he trusts me, he trusted me with everything about — about —”

It was then that he looked at Obi-Wan, and then at Padmé, and his eyes widened and he pulled away from their touch. He stepped back, looking at the two of them and Ahsoka, as if having an intense revelation.

“You’re trying to turn me against him,” he said breathlessly. “Just like he said you would. You’re working together, like he said you were.”

There was a pause. “Anakin,” Obi-Wan said desperately, slowly, “You must understand, it’s the other way around. Palpatine is the Sith Master. The Sith are evil. Can’t you see he’s been manipulating you?”

“He’s not evil,” Anakin said, shaking his head. “He’s been nothing but kind and honest with me this whole time.”

“He lied to you,” Ahsoka said, not containing her incredulity as well as Obi-Wan had. “If he’s been so honest, why didn’t he tell you the truth?”

“Because,” Anakin said, as if that were a complete thought. He seemed to be wrestling with himself, and he seemed so confused it made Padmé’s heart swell with pain. He was frowning. “It made sense when he explained it.”

There was a pronounced pause, and Padmé got the sense that all four of them felt equally clueless about what to do.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said very softly. “What exactly have you been talking about in your meetings with him?”

“He —” Anakin stammered, his eyes flicking in between them all. Abruptly, Padmé thought of a child cowering behind a doorframe, peeking to check if it was safe to come out. “I'm not supposed to talk about it.”

Oh. Oh, this was very, very bad. 

Very, extremely, really bad.

There was a long, poignant moment of silence there in that hangar. There was no one in the background working on ships, no droids whizzing about. Just the four of them and all the space around them. 

Then, slowly, deliberately, Ahsoka said, “Anakin…do you know what psychological grooming is?”

Anakin stared at her blank-faced, then at Obi-Wan, then at Padmé, and it was abundantly clear that he did, in fact, know. “It’s not like that.”

“It’s abuse, Ani,” Padmé said, trying to make him see how _obvious_ it was, now, not that she had ever noticed it before. And she should have. Oh, she should have. “He’s been abusing you.”

The tension in the hangar could be cut with a knife, and that was without even _having_ the Force.

“It’s not like that,” Anakin whispered again. “He’s never hurt me.”

“Damage is not always physical,” Obi-Wan pointed out. 

Anakin raised a hand to his face, rubbed at his eyes. “You don’t understand. None of you do.”

“Then help us to,” said Ahsoka.

Anakin stared at them all, like he couldn’t see why they didn’t get it. “You don’t understand because no one can. You all don’t have visions like these, you don’t have the Force like this, but he — he _does_ understand, that’s the thing, he _knows_ the visions are real. He says he can help me, with — there’s something about the midi-chlorians, and I just need him to show me and then I’ll be able to protect you, Padmé, the way I wasn’t able to protect my mother. All I want is for you not to die, and he can help me make sure of that. I don’t understand why you don’t _want_ that. I know I can do it, if you just give me a chance, I have to go and see him, I have to — I have to —”

In the middle of all his maniacal ramblings Anakin had been taking slow, tiny steps back, in a way he didn’t seem to be fully conscious of, back toward the blast doors through which Palpatine’s prisoner escort had exited, and after his words had trailed off he turned around, started to walk shakily toward the hangar bay doors as if in a trance —

He made it a few steps, and then he collapsed.

Obi-Wan was at his side in a heartbeat, and Ahsoka in the next, and they caught him before he hit the ground. Padmé remained standing, because kneeling was hard when one was so top-heavy, but she came around to stand between him and the blast doors. Slumped in between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, who both had cautious but comforting hands on him, Padmé watched as a fresh batch of tears slipped down Anakin’s face and she had to fight off a few of her own. He looked so defeated. It wasn’t like him. It was awful.

“Anakin, when was the last time you ate something?” Obi-Wan said, reaching up to push hair out of Anakin’s face.

Padmé’s darling husband shook his head miserably. “I don’t remember,” he said, his words slurred by exhaustion. “Maybe yesterday.”

_Ani…._

“Have you not slept at all?” Ahsoka asked him. 

Anakin shook his head again in a slow, deliberate movement. “Can’t.”

“Well let’s go fix that, shall we? Then we can figure out everything else,” Obi-Wan said with a gentility that Padmé had never heard from him. 

All Anakin could do was keep shaking his head. “Please,” he said in a tiny voice. “Please just let me talk to him.”

“No,” Obi-Wan said firmly. “I will not let him near you again.”

“If it were one of us,” Ahsoka said softly, “If our places were swapped, would you let us go?”

“It’s not —”

But Ahsoka cut him off. “It is the same. It is. If you found out one of our friends was a Sith Lord who was trying to turn us to the dark side, would you let us go to them? Or would you want to keep us safe?”

It wasn’t clear if Anakin was speechless, or simply too exhausted to respond in kind. All he did instead was look up and say, “But Padmé….”

She understood. Padmé offered him the best, most loving smile she could possibly muster when seeing him like this, more distraught and confused even than when his mother had died. “How about we go get me and the baby checked out? Make sure we’re okay. Do you want to do that?”

His lower lip quivered, and he nodded. It seemed that all the fight had been finally drained out of him by low blood sugar and severe anxiety. Suddenly he seemed so young, so vulnerable, a stark contrast to the confident exterior he tried, and so often failed, to maintain.

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka helped him up and he let them, looking as weak as Padmé’s knees were starting to feel. Ahsoka tried to hand him a supply bar but he just shook his head once more. Then Obi-Wan took the bar from Ahsoka and put it in Anakin’s hand, saying, “Eat it.”

They walked as a group somewhere Padmé had never been before, not that she’d been in the temple very often at all. The Halls of Healing, they called it, though they said that of late it was starting to become more of a standard hospital than anything. Where once it had been a place of Force healing and tranquil rest, Obi-Wan told her, now the doctors had so many patients on their roster that using the Force was often forgone, with standard medicine taking the forefront as they treated the influx of wounded.

Obi-Wan vanished for a moment, off to talk with someone and explain their situation, so the three of them sat in the main entryway on soft blue benches. Padmé felt incredibly out of place — not only was she _not_ a Jedi, but she was almost certainly the only pregnant lady here — and she gratefully accepted a stool from a Padawan on which to prop up her swollen ankles. Anakin sat next to her, leaning over himself and practically exuding stress, and Padmé was grateful towards Ahsoka for being the one to put her arm around him in comfort. She loved the man as deeply as she loved this baby inside her, but sometimes even she needed a break.

That sounded harsh. Rather, sometimes she was _very_ pregnant and needed to be her own emotional crutch, rather than someone else’s.

Obi-Wan came back with a green-skinned Tekho woman he introduced as Dr. Bhel Jhassar, and that was when Padmé realized that the Jedi did, in fact, train their own to be doctors, rather than outsourcing it, and for some reason she was relieved.

Anakin stayed with her in the appointment, their secret all but abandoned now, all but forgotten. In the grand scheme of things, Padmé supposed, it truly did not matter anymore. In a galaxy where the Clone War had been fabricated by a man that had mentored her for years, where her husband was an abuse victim by that very man, things like maintaining secrecy in a relationship that would make them both lose their jobs simply did not feel like the top priority.

The appointment went well, and was very informative. It wasn’t that Padmé hadn’t had any prenatal care at all. She’d been taking her vitamins, checking in with her medical droid very frequently, getting her bloodwork done and her vitals taken. She’d been eating a lot, eating for two, and she’d definitely put on some Mommy Weight as Motée called it, and sure, maybe some of those kilos had been from cakes and sweets and candies because really, she hadn’t seen her baby’s father in at least five months so _yeah_ she’d been comfort eating a little….but now she was finding out that extra Mommy Weight she’d put on hadn’t actually been _just_ from the candies and cakes, because as it turned out, she’d really been eating for three all along.

Twins. Twins! Twins twins twins twins twins! Padmé hadn’t realized she wanted twins until the very second when the ultrasound popped up on the holoprojection and she saw _two_ big baby heads looking back at her, cute and cradled and suddenly she couldn’t _believe_ she hadn’t bothered to get an ultrasound until now. Twins, twins, twins!

Padmé didn’t think she’d ever been as happy as she was in that moment, staring at an actual picture of her actual _babies_ , curled in on themselves inside of her, closer to her than they would ever be after they were born, until she heard a strangled sound come from beside her and watched Anakin drop his head into his hands miserably.

The doctor seemed to sense something and gave them the room, and Padmé put her hand on his back, unsure exactly of what to do. Because she was still so happy, independent of the intense fear spreading itself through him like a toxin, but she was also very, very worried. And not about herself, either. About the babies, like any good mom would, and about him.

“Ani,” she said, being as calm as she possibly could when what she would now call her Mommy Feelings were at an all time high. Rubbing a circle in her husband’s back, she said, “You know this is a good thing, right?”

“I know,” he said, his voice strained, and he wiped at his eyes with his sleeve and tried to smile for her. “I’m sorry. I’m happy. See? Happy.”

“I get it,” she said, and she really did, but how could she make him _see_ that? “Just another person to worry about, right? But you heard the doctor. I’m fine, both the babies are fine. Babies, Ani! We’re all okay. And to be _completely_ honest, as the mother of your children, plural, I _really_ need you to be here for me right now.”

“I know,” he said again, shaking hair out of his eyes. His very red, puffy eyes. He sniffled, and tried again to smile, but it dropped away after a second. He placed his prosthetic hand gently on her belly, and she got the impression he was trying to feel for their babies through her skin. He spoke as if he were talking to all three of them when he whispered, “I’m here.”

Soon after, the doctor came back in with the results of all her tests, checked a few more things, and told her that, about those contractions she’s been having for a few days? About having to pee every thirty minutes? About the discharge? Yeah, those were early signs of labor. The babies were coming. 

“Maybe not right away,” Dr. Bhel said, smiling. “It’s hard to tell exactly when, but definitely soon.”

Anakin looked up at her in wild desperation. “Are you _sure_ there’s nothing wrong?”

“The babies are in the correct position, their nutrient levels are good, Padmé’s bloodwork is healthy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her that I can find.”

“But what if it’s something you _haven’t_ found?”

“Anakin,” the doctor said gently, “You have been the recipient of our care many times. Have you ever been dissatisfied with us here?” He sighed, and shook his head no. “We are more than happy to take care of Padmé for as long as she wishes to be here. I know everything might seem scary, but — this isn’t Tatooine.”

Anakin stared at her, but he didn’t at all appear angry like Padmé expected him to. Rather, he simply appeared awestruck. Indeed, Padmé hadn’t expected the doctor to say anything like that, but she supposed, as the one who Obi-Wan had said had been looking after all of them since Anakin had come to the temple all those years ago, it made sense that she would know his history and his fears.

“I know it isn’t,” Anakin said coldly. “I know.”

“But I’m not sure you can accept it,” Dr. Bhel said sympathetically, reminding Padmé that she was, in fact, a Jedi. A doctor first, perhaps, duty-bound by medical oaths, but a Jedi nonetheless. “Deaths in childbirth are extraordinarily rare in these parts. Perhaps if we were down in the underlevels, but we’re not. Nor are we in the Outer Rim. Padmé will be safe. I can’t promise anything, but I am confident of it. And I will do my best to help you, as well, as I have always tried to do, but I’m not sure anything else I can say will assure you.”

Nodding mutely, Anakin shrunk back in his chair, staring at the wall. Padmé knew him well enough to tell he was looking out into the Force for answers. Answers she desperately hoped he would find, for all their sakes.

The meeting with the doctor wrapped up. The Jedi were absolutely lovely about this whole thing, which wasn’t a _surprise_ but they weren’t exactly known for being a birthing ward. But still, she felt from the start that she was in completely safe and compassionate hands. The Jedi doctors exuded calmness, which she _really_ needed right now because of the whole thing with her husband having a mental breakdown…they talked her through everything, and even though they had no idea when the baby — babies! — would actually come, they told her what to expect and only scolded her a tiny bit for not having gone to a gynecologist this entire time. Well, what could she say. Oops?

It had already been late when this whole ordeal began, but now it was _really_ late, and she settled down in a comfortable room with Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and Anakin, somehow expecting that she wouldn’t be able to sleep as soon as her body was telling her to. Instinctively, she got the feeling that this was going to be a very long night indeed.

A teeny, tiny part of her, a part that she would never admit to being there, was a little upset about this. Because really, why couldn’t she just have a normal life and a normal family for _one_ day? Why of _all_ days did this have to happen now? Why couldn’t she spend the hours counting down to her babies’ arrival with a happy, excited husband, being pampered and treated like a queen? Well, bad example there, because as queen a lot of people had tried to kill her, but. You know.

But there they were. A mismatched group of people who cared deeply about each other, forced by necessity to stage an intervention for her darling husband, who had apparently been groomed by an evil Sith Lord and had almost turned to the dark side tonight.

Really, now. What was a new mom to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I wanted to write this for years but couldn't think of an in-character way to get these children to sit down and talk about their feelings. What I'm saying is, I've become more powerful than any Jedi has ever DREAMED of, and I'm doing it for YOU, Anakin, TO PROTECT YOU -
> 
> Conclusion next week! Surprise for you: posting it early, Friday 8pm EDT (because that’s the earliest AO3 will let me label it as 10/31 and I arbitrarily planned for this fic to conclude on Halloween 🎃 no reason I just wanted to lmao) In the mean time I’d love to hear your thoughts! 🖤 thank you! 🧡


	7. Anakin II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah yes child grooming, arguably the spookiest of all subjects 👻
> 
> as you will see I made a series for this...I’m not committing to a sequel yet but I do have a few ideas. That said, I do regard this as a complete story with a conclusive ending, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! Big thanks to everyone for being here, especially to those who commented and I really hope you enjoy the end!
> 
> p.s. if you're new and you liked the friendship/mental health/recovery aspects of this story, you might enjoy [Asylum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4415864/chapters/10030988) as well. There you go just gonna. Leave that link right there. Do with it what you will, don’t mind me okthanksbye

Today had been the longest day, by far, in Anakin’s entire life, and it still wasn’t over. And the reason it wasn’t over was because his three friends, all of whom he loved very, very much, would simply _not_ leave him alone.

That wasn’t to say he wanted to be _alone_ alone. Quite the opposite. But was he really in the mood, after his shaking had stopped and he’d finally had something to eat, to be psychologically analyzed by his loved ones as they tried to convince him that he was a _victim?_

No. Because he wasn’t. Anakin was a lot of things, and he felt a lot of things, and okay, sure, maybe he had almost become a Sith tonight. That was on him. But he wasn’t a victim, and he hadn’t been abused. He just hadn’t been.

He just. Hadn’t been.

He hadn’t.

He was _fine,_ so everyone just leave him alone for a little while. Please?

“We will not,” Obi-Wan said crossly, sitting opposite him in the little half-circle they’d formed around him, like they were trapping a feral animal. Anakin already felt contained enough. Why did they have to be doing this _right now?_ “We will not leave you alone until you actually listen to us for once.”

“I’m listening,” Anakin snapped. “To a bunch of nonsense.”

“Anakin,” Ahsoka said in clear exasperation, “Even Maul can see through this. He told me himself that Palpatine has been — has been grooming you, shaping your beliefs. And he was right!”

“Maul is a Sith.”

Ahsoka stared at him. “So is Palpatine!”

“It’s not the same.”

“Yes, it is! Palpatine _trained_ Maul!”

“Palpatine sent Maul after us in the first place,” Obi-Wan cut in, gesturing at Padmé for the ‘us’, “Back on Tatooine when we found you! _He_ ordered the Trade Federation to blockade Naboo!”

“And then,” Padmé said, “He used me to get himself into office by having me propose the vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum! _And_ he manipulated Jar Jar into getting the Senate to approve his emergency powers and the clone army!”

“That turned out to be a good thing,” Anakin retorted. “We all would have died on Geonosis otherwise. The war, the Separatists —”

“He _started_ the war, Ani!”

Why did they have to do all this _now_?

“Well maybe —” he stammered, trying to make sense of it all. “Maybe he had a reason —”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows shot upward. “A reason for starting a war in which he controlled both sides?”

Anakin found he did not have an answer for that.

“He’s behind all of this,” Obi-Wan said, looking right at him. “He’s been working with Dooku to weaken the galaxy so that he could take total control, and he’s been using you to get what he wants! Don’t you see, he requested you be put on the Council because he knew we would ask you to spy on him! He knew that would drive a wedge between us, between you and me, which would drive you away from the Jedi and closer to him!”

There _were_ no answers. There couldn’t be. None of this could be happening.

A recent memory lingered now in his mind as his thoughts raced around themselves, and he repeated faintly, “Dooku....”

Realization must have been dawning on his face, as Ahsoka said, “What is it?”

But then Anakin’s eyes widened, and he clamped his mouth shut. He shook his head again.

Padmé said, gently, “You can tell us, Ani. It’s okay.”

He swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump rising in his throat. Then he looked at Obi-Wan, whose eyes were sad and full of concern. “On the _Invisible Hand_. You were unconscious, and he — he kept talking, taunting me, and it made me so _angry_ , that I —” he swallowed again, but his voice only thickened with disgust, “— I cut both his hands off, like he had cut off mine. I left him defenseless, just kneeling there before me all pathetic. And then I killed him.” He hated himself so badly it burned. “He was a prisoner of war and I murdered him in cold blood.”

There was a pause as pregnant as his wife, before Obi-Wan said, “Did Palpatine tell you to?”

Anakin allowed himself the tiniest of nods, and stared blankly at the wall, seeing instead Dooku’s frightened, alarmed expression from just before he’d died. “Before I killed him, I stared into his eyes and it was like he — like he had just realized something.” He reached up and rubbed at his eyes. The action hurt from all the crying earlier. “I guess that thing was that I’m his replacement.”

Ahsoka said, “You were supposed to be, maybe, but it didn’t happen that way.”

“Do you really think I wouldn’t have done it?” he said, looking at each of them and then finally at Padmé. His voice was hushed. “I would have joined him, I would have done _anything._ I would have burned this temple to the ground to keep you safe.” His gaze softened, and fell to the floor. “Nothing would have stood in my way.”

Another pause, this one even longer than before. Anakin knew why. Because he had already gone to ridiculously absurd lengths to saving them all before, when the situation required it, and he wasn’t exactly known for keeping his cool in those situations. When Padmé had fallen off the gunship on Geonosis and he’d nearly jumped after her, leaving Obi-Wan to fight Dooku alone. The blue shadow virus, where he would have murdered every person on Iego if they had tried to keep him from saving Ahsoka and Padmé. When Obi-Wan faked his death, and Anakin almost killed his undercover friend in vengeance. On Mortis, when Ahsoka had _actually_ died and come back, proving without a doubt to Anakin that yes, the power to stop people from dying _did_ exist, and _surely_ there was a way he could unlock it, or else there was absolutely no point in being the stupid Chosen One at all —

“But you didn’t,” Obi-Wan said, drawing him out of his self-loathing. “Instead, you did the right thing. You asked for help.”

“And if I hadn’t?”

“Irrelevant, because you did.”

Anakin rolled his eyes. This was pointless. Because he was right, and they were wrong. Because he knew, even if none of them would admit it to themselves, that even now he might as well just be a Sith. He basically was one, he thought, in all but name. He certainly had enough hatred to be one, though most of it was directed at himself.

“Just give it a rest,” Anakin said, sulking back in his chair.

“We will not give it a rest,” Obi-Wan said stubbornly, “Not until you understand _why_ what was done to you was abuse. Now please, Anakin. You asked me for help. Let me help. When you went to meet with Palpatine over the years, what did you talk about that he told you not to tell me?”

He couldn’t meet Obi-Wan’s eyes. He felt so sick, so ashamed, and he didn’t even know why. He really didn’t know. “All of it.”

“What specifically?”

Anakin shrugged, staring at the blanket of Padmé’s bed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You never do,” Ahsoka pointed out. “How about just this once?”

He didn’t speak, staring at the white fabric with his lips pressed firmly together, because they could keep him away from Palpatine all they wanted but they weren’t going to get him to actually _talk_ about the man even if it killed him. Go ahead and try, he thought, or better yet please don’t....

Eventually, Obi-Wan exhaled and shifted in his seat. “All right,” he said, thinking. “How about we start less broadly. Anakin — do you feel safe right now?”

That was such a surprising question that Anakin could not help but to meet his master’s eyes. “What?”

“Right now, in this room with us, do you feel safe?”

“If this is another one of your _exercises_ —”

“Anakin, answer the question,” Padmé said, cutting him off.

He sighed. “I guess.”

“But you’re not certain,” Obi-Wan said. Anakin shrugged, looking at the floor again. “Now, when you were with Palpatine in his office, did you feel safe there?”

“I told you, he’s never hurt me —”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Obi-Wan said gently. “Just tell me your instinct. Did you feel safe?”

Anakin felt his mouth twist into a frown. He shook his head, as if Palpatine would hear him if he actually answered aloud. The man _was_ in the temple, after all....

“And when he revealed the truth to you today, what was your instinctual reaction to that?”

Honestly, that had all gone by so fast that Anakin wasn’t one hundred percent sure it had even happened. He remembered it vividly, yet it was as if it had happened to someone else. “I wanted to kill him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“He said if I did, there would be no one left who knew how to save Padmé.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “What else did he say?”

Anakin felt like he was gonna burst. He was so tired, yet suddenly so jittery, like he needed to escape. “I don’t know.”

“It’s not going to get better if you don’t talk about it,” Ahsoka said. “I know we all don’t have the best communication record, but maybe it’s time to change all that.”

Padmé’s hand came to rest on his arm, and unlike in the hangar where everything had been numb and dizzy and detached, he could actually seem to feel it now. Like a tiny tendril of warmth, the smallest candle on the blackest night. It was so simple but so calming, and he was so distracted by it that he forgot he was supposed to be responding until the hand came up to run through his hair. And Anakin wasn’t sure what _to_ say, so he just said the first thing that came to mind.

“He was always so _nice_ ,” he said, “And I used to love it, I really did. It always seemed like he really cared about me. And it’s not that the Jedi didn’t, but it was…different, you know? It was like he really wanted me around, and I didn’t get that feeling from the Jedi. It was like he understood me. He didn’t want me to hold in my feelings or let them go, and, well, neither did I. He said I was better than that, he said those feelings set me apart. I didn’t _want_ to renounce attachment, and he said I shouldn’t have to. You know, no one told me when I became a Jedi that I’d have to do that. Qui-Gon said it would be a hard life, but he didn’t tell me I wasn’t allowed to ever fall in love or have a family and he definitely didn’t tell me I was the Chosen One…he didn’t tell me that for my entire life here everyone would look at me different, everyone would expect me to be perfect and then go behind my back and criticize me for being too emotional —”

Suddenly he couldn’t stop. Anakin heaved a giant breath and kept going — “And Palpatine always said he didn’t _care_ if I was too emotional, he always said that it was a shame no one else understood me, and that just — that meant everything to me. He just made me feel so special. He acted like I was important, but not because of a prophecy, because of my feelings. I would vent to him and he would always listen, he never judged or criticized and never turned it into a lesson like you would — sometimes it felt like all you or anyone would ever do was criticize me. So when he didn’t, I just…I wanted more of that. I wanted to believe the things he said. He always said that one day I would be the most powerful Jedi of them all and eventually I just started to want that so badly. I’d never had power before in my life, but he made it sound _so good....”_

He was starting to shake again. The words just poured out of him now like water and he barely even knew what he was saying.

“And then everything started to change. Before it had just been philosophical differences between him and the Jedi but suddenly it was like their own private war and I was stuck in the middle of it all. Even before the spying thing, the Council would use me to ask him for something. You two, you would both ask me to ask him for things. And I would, I would go, and he would catch on immediately and start going off about how everyone was using me, and it was true! He figured out _immediately_ that you asked me to spy on him. He said the Council was hiding things from me, and I knew that was true because they’ve never trusted me from day one, any more than they trust him — and he said that being a true Jedi meant putting the Republic first and that the Council wasn’t doing that, they were only thinking about themselves and the Order, and it just — it felt right! And when he said the Jedi were going to overthrow him and take control of the Senate, it made sense! And then he said I would have to choose, because if something happened to him then Padmé would die because he was the only one who knew how to save her —

“And it’s not like I didn’t try to fight back, I _did._ I went to Yoda and told him about the nightmares and he said I just had to let go of anyone I feared to lose which isn’t an answer at _all_ , and then Palpatine comes in and gives me a _real_ answer and I just — I had to take it, it wasn’t even a question. And even today, even after telling me the truth he was just so _nice_ about it all. He made it sound like he was doing the right thing all along, he said he was the only one who’d ever been in a position to fix the galaxy, that’s why he’d kept it a secret from me, and he said —”

He choked on the word, swallowing a lump in his increasingly strained throat. “He said he’d been wanting to tell me the truth for years but he couldn’t because the Jedi would have murdered him without trial, and he said I couldn’t be mad at him for lying to me because I had lied to him about Padmé and he — he’s right, I can’t, and I should have told him the truth because I told him _everything._ I told him all the things I shouldn’t have done and all the thoughts I shouldn’t’ve had, and I told him that I knew those thoughts went against the Jedi way but he said that was okay, even though you were teaching me otherwise, and that’s why he always said, every time, that I had to keep it a secret from you, because if I told you then I would get in trouble and I wouldn’t have been able to see him anymore and that it would be _my_ fault and —”

He couldn’t talk anymore, his throat so swollen again after having barely even gotten the last words out, and he bowed his head so that he wouldn’t have to see their looks of pity, and so that they wouldn’t have to see him fighting tears for the hundredth time today. He realized suddenly that Padmé’s hand was still on his arm, and heard her say, “Oh, Ani....”

Suddenly Anakin wanted nothing more than to melt through the floor and die. “I feel so stupid.”

“You’re not,” Ahsoka said quietly, genuinely. “You were a kid, and kids are impressionable. That doesn’t make you stupid. It’s not your fault.”

“I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Well, it’s still not your fault.”

“Murdering people _is_ my fault. He didn’t make me do that. _I_ did that, _I_ killed Dooku, _I_ murdered the —” he cut himself off again, glancing at Padmé. She was frowning. “You know. I can’t take any of that back.” 

Obi-Wan’s eyes flicked to her, then back to him. “But you can learn from your mistakes,” he said, “And you can come to understand why all of this happened in the first place. And when you understand, then you can start to recover.” Anakin shook his head again, looking away. Obi-Wan continued, “And the first thing you need to understand is that this _is not_ your fault. You are not weak. You are not stupid. You were a child, taken advantage of by an adult in a position of power.” He paused, then added softly, “And I’m sorry I never realized.”

“It’s not your fault either,” Anakin snapped. “I never told you any of it, and I should have.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said in that way he always did, that way that conveyed so much meaning and sounded so much sweeter on his lips than Anakin deserved to hear. “You can, and should, take responsibility for your own actions, but _not_ for actions that were done _to you_. And psychological abuse was done _to you_. Not because of you, not because there is anything _wrong_ with you, but because someone else had a craving for power and control. Palpatine abused you, manipulated you, because _he_ wanted to. Because he is evil.”

“Then why does it feel like I deserved it?”

He hadn’t even meant to say that out loud, and he could tell by the looks on their faces they were surprised he would finally be so candid. But since he had already started to dig that hole, he might as well just…let loose. What else did he have to lose besides Padmé, who was already maybe going to die _anyway —_

“I let him do all that to me,” he went on. “I knew the things he told me were wrong but I still went back. Time and time again I went back to him, like I would have tonight. Hell, I still want to even now, even though I know I shouldn’t, and I don’t know what’s _wrong_ with me, I —” His face fell into his hands. “I hate it. I hate all of it, and I hate myself.”

After a second, Padmé said, “Well, we love you. And nothing you can say or do will ever change that.”

He glared at her. “I think if I had burned the temple down to keep you alive you’d change your mind.”

“No,” Padmé replied, holding his gaze. “I don’t think I would.”

“Me neither,” Ahsoka said.

“Nor would I,” said Obi-Wan.

Anakin held Obi-Wan’s gaze the longest. “You don’t love me.”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Obi-Wan said, his expression softer and more demonstrative than Anakin had seen in a long time. “And that I've never been able to say it before is _my_ failing, not yours.”

“We all love you, Ani,” Padmé said, her hand rubbing her belly as if to indicate the babies, too, were already capable of such a thing. “We know you love us. That’s never been a secret. But can you really not see how much we love you?”

Honestly, no. No, he couldn’t. He really, really couldn’t. He couldn’t see anything even close.

Tears started to form again in his eyes, just like they had been all day.

What was _wrong_ with him?

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Ahsoka said gently. “Please, don’t be.”

“I trusted him,” Anakin said, finally beginning to comprehend what his gut had been telling him for years. “I told him everything. Things I never told any of you. I thought he cared about me. I was beginning to think he was the only one who did.”

Padmé said, “Is that what he told you?”

“Yes.” More tears fell down his cheeks. He wiped them off on his sleeve, and sniffled. “He said — he said you two were conspiring against the Republic, with the Council and the Loyalist Committee. He said you were all going to depose him. He said you were traitors. And I believed it. I believed every word.” He was too tired to cry any more. Even the thought of it was so exhausting. “I’m so sorry.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said softly, “Please don’t apologize. Just promise you will let us in. Just try to understand that all your negative thoughts were put there by _him_.”

“When we first met you,” Padmé said, “You were the most purely kindhearted person I had ever met. You put your life on the line at nine years old for a group of strangers you barely even knew, with absolutely no thought of reward. There was no promise of being a Jedi, nothing you thought you would get out of it. You just wanted to help us. _That_ is the person that you are, and it kills me that he tried to take that away from you. He might have tried to make you forget that kind little boy inside of you, but we never have.”

He felt so raw. So broken, so exposed. He felt damaged. But for the first time in, admittedly, quite a long while — he actually _did_ feel that they cared. He wasn’t sure he felt loved, exactly, because it felt like there was no _way_ anyone could love him, especially not as much as he loved them — but rationally he knew it, and that helped. Knowing, rationally, that Padmé loved him, Ahsoka loved him, even _Obi-Wan_ loved him — it helped. It did.

Now he just had to make himself believe it.

There was a reasonable, comfortable silence now, which Obi-Wan broke by saying, “Now will you _please_ try to get some sleep?”

“I can’t,” Anakin said, exhaustion weighing over him more than it had been for days. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but every time I try I _see_ it.” He looked at Ahsoka. “You’ve had visions before, you know what it’s like. It just completely takes over any dreams you might have, and all of _this_ won’t change the fact that last time, the visions came true.”

“But think about the timing,” Obi-Wan reasoned. Anakin had told him everything in the hangar, before Windu had arrived with Palpatine in custody, and Anakin hadn’t exactly been calm even then but he had managed to get the details out, at least. “Last time, you had been having dreams about your mother for a month before she died. You told me that you didn’t have _these_ premonitions until after you found out Padmé was pregnant. _And_ you said that Palpatine knew about them without you telling him. None of this can be a coincidence.”

Padmé looked at Obi-Wan. “You think Palpatine is causing the dreams?”

“I’d be willing to bet on it,” Obi-Wan said. “The timing is just too good. Surely he must have realized somehow that you were pregnant and planned everything out. The attack on Coruscant, Grievous and Dooku. Remember that _he_ informed the Council of where Grievous was hiding. He must have wanted Grievous out of the picture. He must have been planning a takeover, and timed these dreams to line up with the exact moment he wanted you to join him.”

“He never said anything about a takeover,” Anakin retorted. “By him, anyway.”

“Maul did,” Ahsoka said. “He said to me that according to Sidious’s plans, the time of the Jedi was over. He said the Republic had already fallen, and that the shift was right about to happen. That’s why Maul came to Mandalore when he did. Obi-Wan’s right, there’s a reason this is all happening at once.”

“But you don’t _know_ that these are his doing,” Anakin said, not wanting to think about any of this. “When it was about my mom, if I had gone to her earlier she might not have died. If these are real, and if I _can_ do something about them, and if _you_ die, Padmé, and I could have stopped it…I can’t go through that again. You just have no idea — seeing it, feeling it, and having to watch it come true in real life — and before you say it,” he added, looking at Obi-Wan now, “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say any—”

“The future is always in motion,” Anakin said, rolling his eyes. “I _know_.”

Padmé took his hand and squeezed it. “Anakin. You heard the doctors. You saw the test results. There is absolutely nothing scientifically or medically wrong with me or the babies. I’m okay. I’m going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that,” Anakin repeated numbly.

“Maybe not,” Padmé said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but if you don’t sleep you’re not going to make it to the future at all.” She looked at Obi-Wan. “Can we get him some kind of sleeping pill?”

Indignantly, Anakin said, “I’m not taking—”

“Yes, you are,” Obi-Wan said, getting up. “Once you’ve made it through the night, _then_ we can worry about the future.”

Anakin opened his mouth to refuse, but Padmé and Ahsoka stared daggers into him so he slumped back in his chair, feeling like a Padawan again.

To be honest, though, he really was that tired. He honestly hadn’t slept, he thought, more than two hours a night (if even that) since before coming back to Coruscant at least, though sleep was always tenuous on the front so he wasn’t quite sure about that, either. But finally, after everything that had happened today, he really did just want to sleep, and maybe cry a little more but _mostly_ just sleep. Obi-Wan came back with a sleep aid, nothing too sedating but something that should at least knock him out…he didn’t want to leave Padmé, _couldn’t_ leave Padmé because the visions _were_ still up in the air, so they got another bed brought into the room and only sort of begrudgingly did he settle back, his anxieties keeping him up as long as he could keep his eyes open, listening to the soft, unrelated conversation of his friends....

His eyelids wouldn’t open anymore, and all his limbs felt impossibly heavy, and his mind was going off somewhere to the gentle sound of his loved ones talking around him, acting like everything was normal....

Anakin thought he must have never fallen asleep after all because he hadn’t dreamed, hadn’t _seen_ , but he couldn’t tell until he managed to wrench open his crusty eyes, thinking he would let himself sleep in just a second but first he wanted to make sure Padmé was okay —

It was darker in here, now, the lights far dimmer than they had been, but he could make out that the orange shape on Padmé’s bed was most decidedly _not_ his pregnant wife, but was almost certainly Ahsoka, who he’d forgotten for that drowsy second was here on Coruscant and not off on Mandalore, or off in the unknown....

He gasped. Sat up. Looked around. She wasn’t here. She _wasn’t here_. Where was she, where — 

“Padmé,” he said, groping at the heavy blankets on top of him, they’d given him a weighted blanket to assist the sleep aid because his brain really needed all the help it could get and he was so tired he could barely shove it off —

Ahsoka jumped to action, rushing over to him and placing her hand gently on his shoulder, saying, “It’s okay, she’s fine. She’s okay.”

“No,” Anakin said, and his mind couldn’t make sense of what was going on, he was so _tired_ but she — she was in labor, they’d said, what if — _what if —_

“Anakin, she’s okay,” Ahsoka said firmly, pushing him back against his pillow with both hands. Anakin didn’t have it in him to resist. He was so tired. “Her water broke a few hours ago, but she’s okay. Obi-Wan went with her.”

“Obi-Wan,” he repeated numbly, “No, he can’t —” He gasped again, realizing something, and tried to push Ahsoka away. No, no, no. Not Padmé, not Obi-Wan, not his baby. Babies. His babies. Their babies. No, no, no. He was so tired. She was going to die and he was so tired. “ _No_ , he can’t, he — the visions, Obi-Wan’s there, she dies and he’s there, tell him he can’t be there, tell him —”

“It’s okay,” Ahsoka said again, and Anakin didn’t believe that was true but he was _so_ tired, his eyes closed against his conscious desire and he was barely aware of Ahsoka gently smoothing his hair back, repeating over and over, “She’s okay, it’s all right....”

He still didn’t dream, but this time when he awoke his eyes were less crusty, his limbs less heavy, and this time Obi-Wan was here, perched on the side of Anakin’s bed, staring down at a datapad. Ever the observant one among them, he noticed Anakin was awake and smiled. Sunlight came in through the windows across the room, but instinctively Anakin knew that morning had already come and gone.

“Goodness, you really did need the sleep, didn’t you Padawan?” Obi-Wan said, and leaned over to press a kiss to Anakin’s crown, whispering into his hair, “Congratulations.”

The words seemed to go in one ear and out the other. They simply did not make sense. Anakin blinked. “Huh?”

“It’s a boy,” Obi-Wan whispered almost giddily, and then quirked his head to the side thoughtfully. “ _And_ a girl.”

In his periphery, Anakin noticed a shape that was not orange this time, and looked over to see his wife where Ahsoka had been some time before, alive and safe and completely asleep. In the Force, her presence was a strong, peaceful, and most importantly _present_ bliss. Somewhat convinced that this was all a hallucination (because, really, huh?), he looked back at Obi-Wan for an explanation.

“I am sorry you had to miss it,” his friend said honestly, “And you can be angry with us later for not waking you, but I assure you it was a unanimous vote. How are you feeling?”

Rather than answering that very complicated question, Anakin asked, “Where are they?”

“The temple brought in neonatal care units last night. They’re premature, but in good health. The doctors think they should only need a few days in the incubators. You can see them whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” Anakin said, but Obi-Wan put a steadying hand on his shoulder as he tried to get up.

“Patience, Anakin.”

“Those are my children, don’t tell me you’re going to keep _them_ from me, too —”

“We are not,” Obi-Wan confirmed. “But your little bundles are quite Force-sensitive, you know, and we think they’ll be highly susceptible to your emotions. You should try to be calm before you see them.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” Anakin snapped, knocking Obi-Wan’s hand away and getting up. Obi-Wan shook his head the way he always did and followed Anakin out the door, then led the way down the hall. The temple didn’t have a neonatal wing because why would they, and when they arrived the techs explained that the incubators didn’t mean they weren’t healthy, but that they just needed a little more time to develop as premature twins often did. And surprisingly, Anakin could understand that. Really, he could. Because never, not once, at any point had his visions been about living babies dying. Only Padmé, while she was in labor. And if labor was over, and the babies were alive, and _she_ was alive, then maybe....

Maybe it really would be okay. Maybe it really was all right. The proof was right here in front of him, waiting for him to accept it. It might just take him a little while to get to that point.

His children. His _children_. He clapped his hand to his mouth and felt his eyes sting yet again with tears as he looked upon his two beautiful children _._ His wonderful, perfect, wrinkly, pink little babies. Tiny hands, tiny feet, a few thin wisps of hair on two otherwise bald heads. Perfect, perfect, perfect little Skywalkers. Or Amidalas. Or Naberries. He didn’t care. He only cared that they existed. They lived. They _lived_.

She lived. They lived. They were all alive. Alive, living breathing beautiful healthy perfect. Perfect.

Perfect.

He stood there with Obi-Wan for a while in silence, looking in on the incubators as if in a trance, completely mesmerized. So mesmerized, in fact, that he didn’t even notice Padmé come in.

She was sleepy but so, so beautiful, and she smiled tiredly at him. Her white hospital shift hung loosely around her, her baby bump still pronounced but at least half the size it had been. In the Force, her happiness rang in great chorus, in perfect harmony with his children. _Their_ children.

“I haven’t named them yet,” she said, stifling an exhausted yawn, and when her hand came to rest on his back it was like a static jolt of pure living energy, like the tickle of a warm flame. “But I was hoping we would stick with the ones we already talked about.”

They had discussed it before the nightmares had really taken over his mind, when Padmé had been sure it would be a boy and Anakin positive it was a girl. And only now, looking down at both of them, was he finally able to match Padmé’s excitement from the previous night, when they had looked upon the ultrasounds to her delight and to his absolute misery.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t been happy. Well — actually it was. Happiness, last night, had felt like an unfamiliar concept with which he’d long ago parted ways. Happiness had been an abstract, like a distant memory that one couldn’t confirm was real, an emotion that he understood the idea of but had been completely washed away by an ocean of anguish and despair. Padmé’s joy and thrill _had_ existed to him, but only as if through a transparisteel airlock hatch. Like she’d been safe and sane on a well-lit, comfortable cruise ship, while his escape pod was about to fly into a supermassive black hole. Which was also on fire. 

Maybe he was too tired for metaphors. Or too distracted. No matter. The point was, their babies had names. Names that he loved. Padmé’s pick, Luke, perfect perfect Luke, and his beautiful little girl, whose name came from the ancient lore of slave culture on his homeworld: Leia.

He got to hold her for a short while after Padmé nursed her, and although he would have been content to sit here and stare at the bundle in his arms forever, surrendering her back to the warmth of the incubator was easier than he’d expected. It was the same with Luke. Because the incubators were safe, were supporting their health, unlike him, who —

Well.

He was happy. But he was also haunted. Occupied by the twins, yet preoccupied by what could have been.

What could have been. That was the question. Anakin thought he had an idea, but really — 

He just didn’t want to think about it.

Padmé retired back to the room to continue her exhausted sleep, and he watched her go with all the love in his heart.

_What do you have to do?_ she had asked him last night, when he had called her from the Council chamber having half-convinced himself that she was dead already. _What’s more important than our love?_

Nothing, Anakin thought now with finality. Nothing except these two beautiful little babies.

He stood by the incubators for a while, watching them. Watching their perfect noses, their closed eyes. Obi-Wan came back over to him.

“I hope you don’t mind,” his friend said softly to him, “But while she was in labor, Padmé and I talked to Dr. Bhel about getting you some sort counseling, either here in the temple or somewhere else.”

Anakin huffed. “Therapy?”

“It’s a good thing, Anakin,” his friend said, placing a careful, comforting hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “No one is forcing you, but speaking as your _friend_ , not your master — I think it’s a good idea.”

“I’m not telling a stranger about my life. I clearly can’t even tell my friends about my life. I’m not a victim.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “But you _are_ hurting. Anyone in your position would be.” 

Anakin shrugged. “I’m a father now. I’m happy.”

“You can be happy about one thing and upset about another, you know.”

“You said you weren’t speaking as my master.”

“And _I_ can be your master sometimes and your friend the rest of the time.”

“You will always be my master,” Anakin said, turning to look Obi-Wan in the eyes. As soon as they locked gazes Anakin wanted to look away, but he forced himself to be steady. “But I almost had a new one last night.”

“‘You almost’ is not the same thing as ‘you do’.”

“But I might have,” Anakin whispered, looking back down at the wrinkly, nearly identical twins. Luke and Leia. Leia and Luke. His darlings. His perfect, and perfectly alive, darlings. “I _would_ have. If you hadn’t been there.”

“If _you_ hadn’t called me,” Obi-Wan corrected. “You did the right thing, Anakin, on all accounts.”

“I don’t feel like I did,” Anakin admitted, still too tired mentally to bother hiding his feelings from Obi-Wan, the way he always did. He watched the rise and fall of Luke’s chest, looked at Leia’s tiny fist, and they reminded him this was all real. “I’m still angry. I still want revenge. I feel like…like I should be doing something. Like I should be getting rid of him. I feel like it’s my duty, even though I can’t think of anything I want to do less.”

“I know you hate it when I say this, but…those feelings will pass in time.”

Anakin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, with therapy, right?”

Obi-Wan chuckled. “Right.”

With a deep sigh, deep enough that it let sort of a weight off his chest, he glanced away from his babies back at Obi-Wan. “I’ll think about it. Maybe.”

Obi-Wan folded an arm around Anakin’s shoulders for a moment and smiled. “Coming from you, my friend, I believe that’s a yes.”

Life, Anakin knew, would never be the same from here on out. The future was as uncertain as it had always been, and somehow — that was comforting. It was normal. His life had always been jumping from one thing to the next, from slavery to apprenticeship to knighthood, mission to battle to campaign. Maybe life being uncertain was _good_ , because the opposite — well, at this point, he didn’t want to know what the opposite might entail.

_You can’t stop the change, anymore than you can stop the suns from setting._

_Oh, Mom_ , he thought, idly poking one finger very gently into Luke’s hand and smiling as the tiny fist closed. _If only you could see what that change has wrought. I wish you could see your grandchildren._

He remembered, as if in a dream, going to Palpatine in confidence, agonized by his actions at the Tusken camp, and any trace of a smile fell from his lips. How many of his thoughts, innocent and guilty alike, would be tainted by that man? How much of him was really Anakin, and how much was planted by a Sith Lord with a plan for him? And more than anything — how far _would_ he have gone to save these two beautiful babies?

He already knew the answer. Knew it as he knew the love he had for his children, and for his wife, and for Obi-Wan. For his mother.

In the end, Anakin decided, he didn’t much care what would happen next, as long as the health and safety of his friends and family was a constant. He didn’t care what happened to Palpatine, or if the Jedi kicked him out, or if Padmé was removed from the Senate. For once, he was simply relieved to be passive. He was relieved it was out of his hands. The prophecy, his destiny, _whatever_. In the end, more than he wanted _almost_ anything — 

Really, he just wanted to never see Palpatine ever again.


End file.
